


Nature Is Cheaper Than Therapy

by ariverofthings, PS_NoThanks



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: BAMF Peter Parker, BAMF Tony Stark, Camping, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, POV Peter Parker, POV Tony Stark, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Has Issues, Peter Parker Has Nightmares, Peter Parker Needs a Break, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Peter Parker has PTSD, Peter Parker is a Mess, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:09:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 54,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27505099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariverofthings/pseuds/ariverofthings, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PS_NoThanks/pseuds/PS_NoThanks
Summary: "A trip, Tony. A holiday. You and Peter,” Pepper said, rolling her eyes.“A holiday,” Tony repeated slowly. “Me and Peter.”“That’s my suggestion,” Pepper nodded. “I’d recommend something lowkey, nothing too extravagant. You said yourself that Peter’s pretty tired at the moment. Just do something calming, relaxing, refreshing. Even just a camping trip. Nature’s supposed to be good for mental health, you know.”“A camping trip,” Tony mused. Peter loved being outside; maybe a breath of fresh air was just what he needed. “Alright,” he nodded, trying to play it off as though the prospect of a camping trip with Peter was merely a task that he would complete with good grace, rather than something he was already getting actively excited about. “Alright, I’m interested.”~~~Or, with Peter burdened by the aftermath of Homecoming Night, Tony hatches a plan to take Peter on a camping trip in the hopes of lightening his spirits. In the seeming tranquility of the woods, they engage in just about every camping cliche known to man and revel in the freedom that comes with taking a break from their superhero alter egos.What could possibly go wrong?
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark & Avengers Team
Comments: 99
Kudos: 154





	1. Big Hero 6

**Author's Note:**

> Heyyyyy guys it's your favourite pair of authors, back at it again with another collab.  
> We enjoyed writing Demons together so much (if you haven't read that already go read it... not cause it's related to this fic in any way but because its just so great), that we decided to get started on another collab. This one has been in the works for about a month because we had to take a ginormous break for academic priorities, but we're both back now, and super excited to hear what you guys think!  
> We think you'll like this one :D

There was dust in Peter’s eyes. In his mouth, his nose, the back of his throat. He hacked out a grating cough and tried to ignore how the movement sent sharp fractals of pain spiralling through his limbs. There was something hard and heavy resting on his torso, pressing him  _ downdowndown _ into the ground. It was a horrifyingly familiar sensation, and Peter started panicking when he realised where he was.

No. No, no,  _ no _ . He was back at the warehouse. 

But he couldn’t be back there. That had happened over a month ago. He didn’t think he’d ever have to go there ever again. He was done, and the only sign that he’d ever been trapped under a pile of rubble was a lingering fear of small spaces.

But when he blinked his eyes open, his fears were confirmed. He got a glimpse of his own face reflected back at him in a grimy puddle, like a twisted parody of  _ that night _ . The Spider-Man mask was lying there too, soggy and limp. Peter closed his eyes. He didn’t want to look at it anymore.

He tried to shift the mass of metal and concrete on top of him, bracing on a rock and pushing up with all his might. There was the awful, grating noise of metal against concrete, and his arms shuddered under him before they collapsed entirely, hanging from his shoulders like oversized noodles. He coughed again, and there was something wet and thick on the rock below him. A metallic taste in his mouth. 

“Hello?” Peter called, his voice raw and ragged. He took a few panicked breaths, his chest heaving against the unrelenting slab of concrete above him. “Hello? Please! Hey, hey, please! I’m down here, I’m down here. I’m stuck, I can’t move! I can’t-”

Breathe. He couldn’t breathe. There wasn’t enough energy in his body to do it anymore. He was exhausted, and every heaving gulp of oxygen just brought more and more dust into his lungs. 

His cries petered out as his mouth stopped cooperating with his brain, and the night was heavy with silence. The mountain of rubble on top of Peter groaned as it settled under its own weight. He let out a half-strangled whimper, and then everything was still.

“If you’re nothing without the suit, then you shouldn’t have it.”

Peter remembered every moment of  _ that night _ , but this was different. He was supposed to be looking at his own pale face in the reflection of a puddle, half of it shrouded by the mask of his suit. The voice was supposed to be echoing and distant, not solid and very much  _ here _ .

He peered up at the darkness of the sky, and the Iron Man suit materialised in front of his watery eyes. “Mr Stark?” 

The suit didn’t react. The faceplate stayed down, a cold barrier between Peter and the man he had come to view as a mentor.

“Help me, Mr Stark. Please help!”

“You’re nothing.”

The voice was chillingly detached and metallic, and Peter felt like he'd been punched in the gut by the Hulk. It didn’t sound like Mr Stark. “Sir?”

“You’re nothing, Parker. Pathetic. What kind of superhero can’t even get out from a little warehouse?”

“W-what?”   


“How am I supposed to trust you to save people when you can’t even save yourself?”

“I’m sorry, Mr Stark. Please, I’m s-sorry! Just help me, please!”

“You’re pathetic, you’re useless, and I’m sick of dealing with your mistakes. We’re done, Parker.”

“Sir? Please, what did I do, sir? Mr Stark, stop, p-please!” Peter cried, his voice cracking as a sob built its way up his throat.

“You couldn’t save me either,” another voice said, and Peter nearly choked. He whipped his head around, and there was Ben. The man looked pale and gaunt. His hair, which was normally gelled into place so carefully, hung across his forehead in limp strands.

“Uncle Ben?” Peter croaked, and he felt like someone was ripping his fucking insides out when his gaze slid downwards and he caught sight of the red blotch on Ben’s button-down shirt, spreading across the man’s chest. It had been Ben’s favourite, and May had thrown it out that night. The cops had handed them a bag of the things his Uncle had had on him when he died, and as soon as they got home, May had launched the bag into the trash can, tears in her eyes.

“I was counting on you to save me, and you couldn’t even do that,” his Uncle spat, the words poison in Peter’s mind. “I died because of you.”   


“I’m sorry, Ben! I swear, I-I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.” Peter was sobbing openly now, and maybe everything Mr Stark had said was true. Maybe he  _ was  _ pathetic.

“It’s too late for that now. I’m dead, and it’s your fault. You took me away from May, away from a long, happy life with her, and I will never forgive you.”

“You made me a widow, Peter. How could you?” That was a new voice, and Peter turned his gaze towards it, mouthing useless excuses. May was standing there, her mascara smeared in clumps under her eyes and her face blotched with dried tears. She looked exactly the same as she had the morning after Ben’s death. She’d emerged from her room, and found his wallet in the bag of his things. Ben had kept a photo of him, May, and Peter in there, and she’d spent an hour on the kitchen floor, holding it to her chest and sobbing uncontrollably. It had been the only time she let herself cry in front of Peter.

“I’m sorry, May. You-you’ve gotta believe me, okay! I swear I never meant for this to happen. I’m so, so sorry,” Peter wailed, and he saw the exact moment that the light in May’s eyes shuttered, and her face turned just as cold as the Iron Man suit, as Ben’s corpse. “Please, I’m sorry,” he whispered, and he couldn’t even feel the pain from the heaping pile of concrete and metal above him anymore. His mind was reeling with the words that had been spat at him through the dusty air of the warehouse, and he could do nothing as they spun around inside his head.

The Iron Man suit moved in his peripheral vision, and Peter pulled his head up from where it had sagged towards the ground, too tired to hold itself up anymore. There was a repulsor aimed at his face, and Peter’s vision tunneled until all he could see was the glowing circle that could very easily end his life. Snuff him out… just like that. Boom, and Peter Parker is removed from the face of the Earth.

Peter didn’t even have time to cry out before Mr Stark fired.

~~~

Peter jerked awake and all he could think was that he had to get up, get out, get  _ away _ . He didn’t know where he was and he didn’t bother to check as he bolted up, his muscles coiled and ready to run, fight,  _ anything _ .

His panic was interrupted when his forehead smashed into someone else’s, and he heard a gruff shout of pain. The voice was familiar, but not in the way the warehouse had been. Instead of making fear well up in his chest, it calmed his racing heart and he knew, somehow, that he was safe.

“ _ Shit _ , kid. Are you alright?” 

That was definitely Mr Stark, but his voice wasn’t robotic like it had been in the dream - it had just been a dream, after all…or, perhaps more accurately, a nightmare. He sounded worried, a little pained, though that may have had something to do with the fact that Peter had just brained him like an  _ idiot _ .

“I’m sorry. Sorry, Mr Stark. Ah, I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry,” Peter rambled, and he didn’t know if he was apologising for the forehead situation, or waking the man up in the middle of the night, or for the dream. Mr Stark didn’t even know about what had happened at the warehouse, and Peter wanted to keep it that way, but still the apologies came pouring out of his mouth at an alarming rate.

“Jeez, kid. Calm down, it’s alright. What did I say about the pointless apologising? I’m okay, it’s just a bump, really. I’ve got a real hard head. We’ll ice it and it’ll be fine.”

“Sorry,” Peter said, smiling slightly and bowing his head. He realised with a start that his cheeks were wet with tears. He tried to discreetly scrub them away, but Mr Stark rarely missed anything, and this seemed to be no exception, despite the fact that Peter had probably just given him a concussion or something. What were the symptoms of a traumatic brain injury? 

“Is everything okay, bud? I, uh, heard you talking to someone and you sounded kinda upset, so I came in here and, well… here we are.”

Peter flushed, mortified. He’d been talking in his sleep? “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Of course I’m fine.”

“Are you sure, kid? Were you… having a nightmare or something?”

_ You’re nothing, Parker. Pathetic. _

Peter winced at the suggestion, despite the fact that it was right on the nose. He couldn’t have Mr Stark thinking that he was having nightmares, like he couldn’t handle being Spider-Man or something. 

He wasn’t four anymore, wondering why his parents left one day and didn’t come back. Aunt May and Uncle Ben had tried to explain the plane crash and his parents’ subsequent deaths to him, but all Peter had been able to think was that his parents had abandoned him because he wasn’t good enough. Would Mr Stark leave too, once he found out about the nightmares that had plagued his sleep ever since Homecoming night? Would he take the suit with him?

“ _ No _ . No, I’m completely, one-hundred percent, nightmare free. Yep.”

“Right…” Mr Stark said, and Peter could tell that the man hadn’t bought a word of it. Peter never had been good at lying. “Well, do you want to talk about your  _ non _ -nightmare, then?”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Peter shrugged, his voice uneven and a little harsher than he intended. He stood up suddenly, legs quivering slightly as the adrenaline faded away. “Let’s watch a movie or something. I’m not tired anymore.”

Mr Stark stayed perched on the edge of the bed for a second, looking perplexed at Peter’s abruptness and just a little bit out of his element. Peter was reminded of the fact that this was probably the first time he’d ever stayed overnight, properly. Of course, he’d stayed overnight in the Medbay of Stark Tower quite a few times due to various Spider-Man-shaped shenanigans (Mr Stark had said numerous times that if he hadn’t backtracked on his decision to sell the Tower, Peter would probably be dead by now), but those overnight stays barely counted. 

Now, however, May was somewhere on the coastline of South Carolina, partaking in a course that would make her eligible for a promotion at work. She hadn’t wanted Peter to stay alone at the apartment for the two weeks that she would be away, because the last time she’d left him alone he’d tried to bake a batch of brownies and nearly burned the whole complex down. So, she’d turned to Tony Stark in a last-ditch attempt to find someone that would watch over her nephew while she was away. The man had said yes, and Peter had spent two days alternating between unmeasurable excitement and blinding terror at the prospect of spending time with a man who he wanted so badly to impress.

Now, Peter was here, a week into his stay at the Avengers Compound, of all places. He counted himself lucky that May’s course took place during summer vacation, because he couldn’t imagine how much of a trek it would be to travel from Upstate New York to Midtown and back five days a week.

He’d already freaked out about his current place of inhabitance with Ned over the phone, and promised his best friend that he’d ask Mr Stark if it was alright for him to visit. He hadn’t met any of the actual Avengers yet, apart from Mr Stark, because half of them were away on a mission, and the other half were skirting around Mr Stark’s private quarters like scared kittens. Things were still a little (read: very) awkward after the whole Civil War debacle, but the accords had been sorted out, and Captain America and co. weren’t fugitives of the law anymore, so there was that, at least. Peter didn’t know what was going on with them half the time, but he did know that Mr Stark looked very uncomfortable whenever one Steve Grant Rogers was in the vicinity, and so he did not trust the man. So what if he was Peter’s childhood hero (aside from Iron Man)? There were other overly-muscled blondes on the team, and one of them was from  _ space _ . Take  _ that _ , Captain America.

Peter made his way into the living area that doubled as a kitchen, Mr Stark following behind. The man dug around in the freezer for a second and then pulled out two ice packs. He pressed one to his own forehead before offering the other to Peter, saying, “You’ve got quite a bump there yourself, kid.”

Peter took it silently, quirking his lips up in a small smile. “Can we watch Big Hero 6?”

Mr Stark rolled his eyes, but the smirk on his face told Peter that he was hiding his own grin, and poorly at that. “C’mon, kid, again? We’ve watched it at least seven times. I don’t understand why you love that movie so much.”   


“It’s so cool, Mr Stark! Like, the Microbots, and Baymax - it’s an animation masterpiece, and I love it,” Peter said fervently, holding a hand over his heart.   


“That movie pulls at  _ all _ of my heartstrings. I don’t think I can take Tadashi’s death one more time, it’s  _ soul crushing _ .”

“Aw, c’mon, Mr Stark. Please?” Peter batted his eyes like a puppy, losing all his dignity in one fell swoop. It worked though, and he saw the exact moment Mr Stark caved.

“Alright, bud. I’ll get the popcorn.”

“Can you put honey on it?”

“I still don’t agree with that  _ atrocity _ . Popcorn is just fine on it’s own, and adding anything to it is just rude.”

“You’re just mad that I got you to try it and you ended up liking it.”   


“I said it was  _ tolerable _ , kid. Tolerable does not equate to enjoyment, and I maintain that it’s a crime against all of popcorn kind.”

“You’re ridiculous, Mr Stark,” Peter laughed as he flopped over the back of the couch, having abandoned his ice pack on the counter of the kitchen. FRIDAY loaded Big Hero 6 onto the screen without being prompted, and he marveled at how easy life would be if he lived with a ridiculously-advanced AI constantly.

“Okay, kid, I’m ready to have my heart broken into a million pieces yet again,” Mr Stark announced as he took a seat on the couch and placed a huge bowl filled with popcorn in between them. Peter smiled when he saw honey drizzled over the top. “Also, you forgot this,” the man added, holding out Peter’s ice pack.

He rolled his eyes. “I’m fine, Mr Stark. I don’t need it - enhanced healing, remember? Honestly, it’s probably more of a threat at this point, because I can’t thermoregulate. Come to think of it, are you trying to kill me?”   


It was Mr Stark’s turn to roll his eyes, and he did so with startling aggression. “I can see the bruise, kid, and I don’t want to see Aunt Hottie’s reaction if I return you and you’re not in perfect condition. That woman is terrifying - did you know she once threatened to turn my Iron Man suit into a toaster oven, and then called me a tin can?”

Peter snorted. “Yeah, I’m not surprised. That sounds like her because she  _ does not  _ like you very much.”

“Why would she ask someone she doesn’t like to look after her kid?”

“I… kind of suggested that she ask you? And she didn’t have anyone else left to ask, so she kind of went with it, I guess?” 

Mr Stark was silent for a moment, and Peter felt like he was about to throw up. Why would he say that? Fuck, sometimes he hated himself and his fat mouth. But then Mr Stark’s face was splitting in a grin, and the man hooked his arm around Peter’s neck, dragging him closer. “C’mere, kid,” he said, moving the popcorn bowl out of the way, and Peter was pretty sure he’d just died from shock because _literal Iron Man_ _was_ _half-hugging him_. “FRIDAY, play the movie please.”

The movie began, and then Mr Stark whipped around to face Peter. “Wait, why wasn’t I your first choice? That’s very offensive, ya know.”

Peter just laughed and turned his focus back towards the movie.

As the team entered their last battle against Professor Callaghan, Peter felt his eyes droop closed. Normally, he wouldn’t fall asleep during a movie, especially Big Hero 6 (it deserved more respect than that), but he hadn’t been sleeping well lately due to… well, the nightmares, and he couldn’t help it. 

Just as he reached the very edge of consciousness, he felt someone ease him down into a vertical position, and rest his head on their lap. Fingers ran through his hair, and Peter sighed contentedly at the sensation. There was a warmth in his chest, and he nestled into the hand.

“Sweet dreams, kid.”

~~~

  
  


Tony woke up slowly and painfully, his mind undergoing a vicious internal battle over whether or not it dared to rise from the oh-so-tempting waters of his subconscious. As per usual, the rational side won, but it was with no small amount of difficulty that Tony finally conjured the energy to sit up and open his eyes.

He was met with the sight of the now sun-filled living area; apparently he’d fallen asleep on the couch after last night’s movie with Peter. He looked down and saw, to no surprise, that the kid in question was still there, curled up on his side and now using one of the cushions as a pillow. It looked like the kid had slept peacefully through the night post-Big Hero 6, but it was Peter’s pre-movie slumber that had Tony concerned.

Sighing, Tony stretched out his stiff neck and got to his feet, moving carefully so as not to wake Peter. The Avengers Compound appeared to be just as empty as it had been the night before, and if he was being honest, it was a little disconcerting. The place hadn’t been meant for this - it had been designed for the team, the  _ whole  _ team, all happily together in one place. It was just too bad that the UN and the stupid Accords had gone and fucked everything up.

But Tony wasn’t focusing on that right now. Focusing on the Accords was a guaranteed path into completely and entirely  _ losing his shit,  _ and Tony had done enough of that over the last couple of months to last a lifetime. No, what he needed right now was to focus on a problem that could actually (maybe) be solved. Provided he wasn’t somehow even more incapable as a temporary-care-giver type thing, or however you wanted to label the situation with Peter, than he was as a damn superhero.

It was for this reason that Tony found himself throwing a blanket over the still-sleeping Peter, leaving the room, and dialling the number of Pepper Potts.

“Tony? What’s the matter, why are you awake before nine am?”

“Hey, Pep,” Tony responded.

“Don’t tell me you set fire to the shower curtain again, because I swear to God, Tony, if I have to hear about one more accidental house fire-”

“Whoa, whoa, don’t get your panties in a twist,” Tony interrupted. “The house is totally flame-free. For now, anyway. But, no, it’s actually - it’s about Peter.”

“Peter? What’s the matter with him?” The tone of Pepper’s voice instantly morphed into one of urgent concern, and a small part of Tony couldn’t help feeling satisfied that the kid’s infectious adorable-charm had clearly won her over, too.

“Nothing,” he said hurriedly. “Nothing life-threatening, anyway. I just...I need your advice on something.”

“Well, well,” Pepper replied. “Tony Stark, asking for my advice. Will the wonders never cease?”

“Just get over here, Potts.”

~~~

“And so then, I’m like, ‘oh, so were you having a nightmare?’ And I’m not joking, Pep, he actually tried to convince me that he  _ wasn’t. _ ” Exasperated, Tony ran both hands through his yet-to-be-gelled hair before letting them flop down on the kitchen table. “I just don’t know. It’s obvious he’s having far from sweet dreams, but how in the hell am I supposed to help him when he won’t even  _ admit  _ just how bitter they are?”

“Bitter?” Pepper repeated dubiously, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, I was going for a weird taste-analogy type thing,” Tony sighed. “Didn’t work. See, Pep, I can’t even make jokes.  _ This  _ is what this kid is doing to me.”

Pepper considered him for a moment, taking a slow sip of the coffee Tony had made for her as she did so. There was a moment of prolonged silence.

“You seem to really be taking this babysitting gig pretty seriously,” Pepper commented after a moment.

“Well, yeah,” Tony said, slightly puzzled. “May trusted me with him, I can’t just kick him to the curb, now can I?”

“But it’s more than that,” Pepper insisted. “Tony, if you wanted, you could feed the kid five meals a day, give him a nice bed to sleep on and some movies to watch, and call it teenage-care. But you’re going out of your way to make sure he’s happy. Everytime I come over, you’re either watching TV with him, playing board games with him or showing him around your workshop. Or even just  _ talking  _ to him. You’re talking to a sixteen-year-old, Tony.  _ Willingly.” _

“Yeah, well,” Tony shrugged, trying and failing to sound casual, “the kid’s entertainment in human form, what can I say?”

Pepper was smiling now, smiling with that infuriatingly knowing look of hers. “You really care about him, don’t you?”

Tony sighed again, stalling for time by taking a long sip of his own coffee. “I just...I feel kinda responsible for him, Pep. I’m the one who started the whole friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man thing. You know, back with the Accords and all that... _ stuff. _ ” He broke off, unable to go into details, once again aware that if he dwelled on the prospect of the Sokovia Accords for too long, and everything that had transpired because of it, he might just start throwing things.

“I believe that is what experts in the literature field would call  _ a plot hole,”  _ Pepper said, rolling her eyes at him. “If I recall correctly, you sought Peter out  _ because  _ he was Spider-Man, Tony. He was already doing the whole saving-people-routine before you found him.”

“Yeah, but I made it worse,” Tony argued fervently. “I made him go and join in on a bunch of grown adults fighting like toddlers. Oh, except that these adult-toddlers are super enhanced and possess possibly lethal powers. That whole Vulture thing wouldn’t have happened if the kid hadn’t felt some irrational kind of responsibility, like he had to, I dunno,  _ prove  _ to be that he could be an Avenger.”

“But maybe that feeling of trying to prove himself was just something he had to go through,” Pepper reasoned. “You know, a growing experience. He’s a teenager, Tony, you’ve got to remember that. And he proved he could handle himself, didn’t he? He made it out alright.”

“I know, I know,” Tony groaned, now burying his face in both his hands. “I just sometimes get the feeling that the Vulture ordeal still sort of...bothers him. He gets this look in his eye, sometimes. And call me crazy, but I know a thing or two about the stuff trauma does to you, and he’s been having these nightmares…”

“Nightmares?” Pepper interrupted, taking another sip of tea. “I thought there was just one.”

“That I’ve witnessed,” Tony corrected as he looked up from his hands. “But I hear him get up in the night sometimes, and he goes to bed so early that he definitely can’t be sleeping through the nights soundly. And during the day, he’s usually fine, but he looks tired, Pep. I want to help him, but...well...that didn’t go so well last night.”

Pepper nodded, watching him with that knowing look in your eye. “You’re just gonna have to give him time, Tony. Don’t push him to talk, but don’t distance yourself either. Just give him the space he needs.”

“I  _ have  _ been,” Tony groaned again, well aware that he was now in danger of being mistaken for a whining child, and past the point of caring. “It doesn’t seem to be working.”

“Well, you said he’s fine during the day, didn’t you?” Pepper pointed out. “Sure, he might be struggling with nightmares, but he seems happy with you, at least. That’s got to count for something.”

“Maybe if I was a blindly misled optimist, it would,” Tony grumbled. “But I like to be realistic, Pepper.”

“Realistic as in soul-crushingly negative?”

Tony rolled his eyes. “I just wish there was something more I could do.”

“Well, pessimistic Petunia,” Pepper said, the corners of her mouth twitching slightly, “maybe there is.”

Tony stared at her for a few seconds, barely able to contain the streak of excitement that shot down his spine. “I knew it. You’ve got an idea, haven’t you? You’ve got to the solution to all the problems that my man-child self can’t deal with, right? As usual?”

“I may have a suggestion,” Pepper nodded, smiling properly now.

“Oh, thank God,” Tony sighed. “This is why I love you, Pepper.”

“Because I solve problems like a reasonable human being, and don’t blow things wildly out of proportion? And also because I don’t set things on fire?”

“Precisely.” Tony grabbed her hand from across the table and kissed it. “Now, you adorably intelligent woman, tell me your suggestion before I blow the kitchen into flames out of anticipation.”

“Alright, well,” Pepper began, “you’re worried about Peter, but you don’t know how to help, right?”

“Correct. It’s quite the torturous situation. I’d take a million Afghanistans over this.” Pepper gave him a pointed look, and Tony sighed. “Alright, maybe not quite a million. But a good few dozen or so.”

“I’m going to ignore that,” Pepper said, sounding thoroughly exasperated, “and tell you that what you and Peter need is a  _ change _ .”

Tony paused, looking up at her with curiosity. “Change as in a fresh set of new T-shirts with  _ Star Wars  _ propaganda on them for the kid’s wardrobe? Oh, and a replacement of his Captain America pyjamas with a pair of much more tasteful Iron Man ones?”

“I was thinking more of an emotionally mature change,” Pepper replied dryly. “Like, oh, I don’t know...a change of location, for example.”

“Okay, now I’m just confused,” Tony frowned. “You want me to, what, move the kid’s bedroom to the east side of the compound? Sweeter dreams if you’re facing the sunrise, is that some saying that people with normal childhood upbringings know about?”

“Again, something slightly less painfully  _ stupid _ ,” Pepper said, rolling her eyes. “I mean a  _ trip,  _ Tony. A holiday. You and Peter.”

“A holiday,” Tony repeated slowly. “Me and Peter.”

“That’s my suggestion,” Pepper nodded. “I’d recommend something lowkey, nothing too extravagant. So you can quash those ideas of taking him in your private jet to some VIP-access Disneyland function right now.”

“I was more going in the direction of a spontaneous Hollywood adventure,” Tony replied, “but now that you mention it, Disneyland does sound appealing. The kid loves Disney.”

“Tony, the point of this is  _ not  _ to make the kid permanently hyperactive,” Pepper said, folding her arms. “You said yourself that Peter’s pretty tired at the moment. Just do something calming, relaxing, refreshing. Even just a camping trip. Being outdoors is supposed to be good for mental health, you know. And at any rate, nature  _ is _ cheaper than therapy.”

“A camping trip,” Tony mused, all visions of a Disneyland-extravaganza banished from his mind as he considered this much more rational option. Peter loved being outside; maybe a breath of fresh air was just what he needed. Tony could already picture the scenes in his head with a picturesque sort of clarity that you only saw in fairytale movies: him and Peter setting up a tent, toasting marshmallows, catching fish, gazing at the stars…

_ Jesus, Pepper was right. The kid’s turned you into a lump of sentimental garbage. _

But, sentimental garbage or not, he couldn’t deny it was a good idea.

“Alright,” Tony nodded, trying to play it off as though the prospect of a camping trip with Peter was merely a task that he would complete with good grace, rather than something he was already getting actively excited about. “Alright, I’m interested.”

“Good to hear,” Pepper smiled, and Tony could tell he hadn’t fooled her with her attempts to act casual. “Oh, and Tony, do both of yourselves a favour and don’t bring the suit. Or Peter’s Spider-Man gear. It’ll only remind both of you of the thing you’re trying to get him to forget.”

“Okay, now that’s gonna be a hard one,” Tony said, wincing slightly as he considered the prospect. “I can’t remember the last time I didn’t take the suit with me outside the compound, Pepper. And the kid’s red-and-blue onesie is like a second skin to him.”

“Exactly,” Pepper said. “You’re both far too unhealthily attached to those suits of yours. You’re more than just some metal armour, Tony.”

“Well, that’s grossly oversimplifying the function of the suit,” Tony interrupted, wagging a finger at her. “It’s not some medieval Gladiator-style chainmail armour, Pepper. It’s a sophisticated, highly advanced, AI-run suit that Steve Rogers could spend countless millennia trying to figure out, only to come up with ‘it seems to run on some form of electricity’-”

“Alright, that’s enough Steve-hating for today,” Pepper interrupted. “Point is, Tony, if you can’t spend a few days without your Iron Man suit, you’re quite frankly a paranoid mess. You’re going off to a patch of  _ trees,  _ for God’s sake; you’re hardly going to have to deal with an attack from HYDRA, or some other Avengers-level threat. And trust me, the best thing you can do for Peter is to just remove him from the whole Spider-Man mindset for a while. It’s obviously troubling him. You both need a break.”

Tony stared at her for a few moments, a muscle in his jaw working as he struggled against the urge to argue further. As much as he hated the idea of leaving behind what was as much a part of himself as his own skin, he knew that Pepper was right. He was, put simply, living in a codependent relationship with a piece of metal. And at any rate, Peter’s nightmares might fare better if Tony hadn’t packed gear for a small nuclear war.

“You’re right,” he admitted. “Of course you’re right. Okay, no suit. No Iron or Spider-Men. Just me, the kid, and about twenty-five pounds of marshmallows.”

“Sounds incredible,” Pepper smiled at him, taking his hands in hers as she did so. “You’re going to have fun, Tony. This is what both of you need.”

Tony grinned back, giving her hand a squeeze. “I’m giving you a fifty percent raise for this, Pep. And permission to clean my workshop while I’m gone. And all my love and affection.”

“You probably should have led with the affection,” Pepper shot back, rolling her eyes. “But who am I to criticise an emotionally-stunted man? Once a three-year-old, always a three-year-old, I suppose.”

“I hate you,” Tony said. “And somehow love you even more.”

“Tony, take those bipolar emotions and go tell Peter the news.”

“You know, I think I’ll do just that.”

Pepper lightly shoved him away, and Tony stood up from the table to go tell the kid about the camping trip, feeling somehow lighter despite the four cups of coffee he'd just consumed. They were going _camping_.


	2. Survivor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!!! It is us, showing our shameful faces again. We're so sorry that this chapter took so long. We were gonna start... but then we didn't... and now we're here, standing in front of you and begging for forgiveness while we offer up a second chapter of Nature Is Cheaper Than Therapy.  
> We hope you enjoy :D

When Tony re-entered the living room, he was pleased to discover that Peter was now wide awake, lazily sprawled across the couch with an iPhone in both hands and his thumbs flying across the keyboard.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, kid,” Tony announced. “What’s with the finger-jig?”

“I’m texting Ned,” Peter replied, not looking up from the phone screen.

“And this Ned punk is more interesting than my gorgeous face?”

“Hey, this is important, Mr Stark,” Peter protested. “We’re trying to work out what Lego set he should order next.”

“A gut-wrenching choice that no teenage boy should ever have to make,” Tony said, crossing the room and slumping onto the couch besides Peter. “What are the options?”

“Either  _ Star Trek  _ or  _ Star Wars.” _

“Kid, the fact that you’re actually deliberating over this physically hurts me,” Tony grimaced. “Go with  _ Star Trek,  _ no question.”

“ _ Star Trek _ ?” Peter repeated, rolling his eyes. “You only like that more because you’re, like, ancient.”

“Well, in my defence, it is a known fact that the Wars copied the Trek _ ,”  _ Tony answered. “ _ Star Trek  _ was the original. The firstborn of interspace sci-fi, you might say.”

“Yeah, but  _ Star Wars _ is, like, way cooler,” Peter argued. “It’s got Darth Vader.  _ And  _ Chewbacca. How many Wookies does  _ Star Trek  _ have again?”

“Kid, if you’re so into the rip-off version, why are you and your little friend having such a hard time deciding between the two?”

Peter hesitated, looking slightly abashed. “Well, the  _ Star Trek  _ one may be thirty dollars cheaper. Not that that’s a big factor or anything. It’s just good to consider, uh, financially speaking. More bang for your buck, you know...”

Tony stared down at the kid in amused disbelief. “Peter, for the love of God, stop talking. If you love your Wookies so damn much, I’ll buy the set for you.”

“No!” Peter blurted out, before instantly turning a slight shade of red. “I mean, uh - thank you, Mr Stark, but no. I’d feel so bad, and me and Ned have money saved anyways, and it’s just for a stupid Lego set-”

“Kid, I have never heard you speak more passionately about anything in your life,” Tony declared solemnly. “I’ll shout you, alright? It’s no big deal. In fact, I might even grab myself that  _ Star Trek  _ one while I’m at it, see if I can’t show you kids how the elite build their Lego.”

“Oh yeah?” Peter replied, and Tony was pleased to see his embarrassment quickly fade into excitement at the challenge. “Don’t you get Dum-E to build everything for you these days? You’ve probably forgotten how to use a screwdriver.”

Tony chuckled. “I was made for building Lego, kid. You’ll see my magic once I buy the sets.” 

Grinning, Peter turned back to his phone. “Okay, Mr Stark. I’m telling Ned, by the way, and we’re gonna be doing everything in our power to win.”

“Challenge accepted,” Tony nodded, and he reached out and ruffled Peter’s hair affectionately. “Oh, and kid, I can’t stand another minute of you using that piece of junk. It’s a betrayal to my very soul. Remind me to get you a StarkPhone.”

“Whatever you say, Mr Stark.”

~~~

Half an hour and two Lego set orders later, Tony finally convinced Peter to leave the comfort of the couch and get dressed. He would have let the kid lie around much later, but he didn’t think he could wait another second to drop the camping idea to him, and that, he figured, was a conversation best had over breakfast.

“What’s on the menu this morning, kiddo?” Tony asked as Peter walked into the kitchen, now clad in dark sweatpants and a white T-shirt.

Peter shot him a knowing smile, hopping onto one of the counter stools. “Can we have Pop-Tarts?”

“Again? Pete, this is the fifth day in a row.”

“Yeah, but...they’re really addictive?” Peter tried, now grinning up at Tony in that annoyingly irresistible way of his. “C’mon, Mr Stark, you can’t deny that pure sugar for breakfast is the best thing ever.”

Try as he might, Tony found that he could not, in fact, deny this - and he also couldn’t refuse the kid  _ anything  _ when he had that damn twinkle in his eye.

“All right, fine,” he conceded, trying to pretend as though this was a measured choice, and not merely the result of Peter’s infectious enthusiasm. “But if your Aunt asks, I fed you celery sticks and hummus for a week, okay?”

“Okay, sure.”

Shaking his head, Tony set about making the Pop-Tarts, and, figuring there was no better time but now to bring it up, decided to do just that.

“So, kid,” he began, as casually as he could, “are you and Ned planning on building that abomination of a Lego set anytime soon?”

Peter shrugged. “Dunno. They usually take a long time to arrive anyway, and when it does I guess we’ll just find some time whenever.”

“So no set date?” Tony pressed, sliding four Pop-Tarts into the toaster. “No pre-planned meet-up? You guys aren’t one of those weird groups that plan their little play dates, are you?”

“No, Mr Stark,” Peter sighed, sounding half-exasperated. “We just meet up when the urge hits us.”

“Good,” Tony nodded. “That’s very good.”

He could feel the kid frowning at him, but pointedly avoided his eyes. “Um, why? Is anything happening? You’re acting kinda stranger than normal.”

“Indeed there is, kiddo,” Tony replied, deciding there was no point dragging it out any longer. “I was talking to Pepper this morning, and she gave me this idea.”

“Are you gonna start forcing me and Ned to pre-plan when we see each other?” Peter asked, his expression torn between laughter and worry.

“No, nothing like that,” Tony said quickly. “Nah, kid, it’s more of, well, what the general population would call a camping trip.”

Having said the much-anticipated words, Tony waited with no small degree of anxiety for Peter’s response. The kid blinked for a few seconds, apparently digesting the implications behind this statement, and then, to Tony’s utter horror, nodded in a way that was equal parts unenthused and depressed, but certainly not happy or excited.

“Oh,” he said after a moment. “Right. Well, that’s fine then.”

“That’s it? I was kinda hoping for more of a ‘ _ wow-Mr-Stark-this-is-so-great-I’m-so-happy,’” _ Tony said, trying and failing an impression of a gushing Peter.

“Well, it could be fun, I guess,” Peter said slowly, with the painful air of someone saying words that went against every fibre of their being. “I mean, I can use the TV, eat as many Pop-Tarts when I want, and, um…”

_ Oh. Thank Jesus.  _

Understanding flooded through Tony at once, followed by the sweet, sweet feeling of glorious relief.

“Peter, you lunatic,” he interrupted, unable to contain a laugh because  _ it was fine _ , Peter had got it all wrong. “I meant  _ you and I  _ are going on a camping trip.”

A beat passed.

“ _ Ohh, _ ” Peter said suddenly, his expression instantly brighter. “Oh, I get it. I thought you meant you and  _ Pepper  _ were going away-”

“And leave you at the compound alone? Kid, are you nuts? Your hot aunt would skin me alive!” 

“‘Oh, this is way better,” Peter grinned. “This is so, so,  _ so  _ much better.”

“So you like it?” Tony smiled. “I figure we can do it old-school, you know, ditch the technology. We’ll take a tent, find someplace nice and as far away from people as possible. Just me, you and Mother Nature, kiddo.”

“Like it? This is, like, your best idea ever,” Peter declared excitedly. “Right up there with the Iron Man suit, Mr Stark. When do we go? Should I start packing?”

“Hey, kid, hold your horses,” Tony chuckled. “Those Pop-Tarts you begged for still need to be eaten, remember?”

“Right, right,” Peter nodded, and as if on cue, the Pop-Tarts in question abruptly sprung up from the toaster. Tony put them two each on a plate and began pouring glasses of orange juice.

“So  _ where  _ are we going?” Peter asked interestedly, after a total of three seconds had passed. “Is it somewhere with a river?”

“Yet to be decided, kid,” Tony replied, sliding a plate and glass of juice over to Peter. “But a river is definitely on the must-have list.”

Peter took an enthusiastic bite of his Pop-Tart. “When do we leave?”

“I figure the sooner the better,” Tony responded. “We could go today, if you want. We just need a destination.”

“Can it be somewhere close?” Peter requested. “I hate driving, it’s such a pain in the-” He broke off suddenly, a mischievous glint entering his eye. “Unless, of course, we, uh, kinda...flew there?”

“On a plane?” Tony asked. “I thought you hated flying even more than driving.”

“Oh, no, not  _ that _ ,” Peter replied with a shudder. “I mean like...with your suits. How fun would that be?”

“The Iron Man suit?” Tony repeated, eyebrows raised. “While that is tempting, bud, we’re on a strict no-supersuit regime for the next week. Old school, remember?” He considered telling Peter that the ‘no-technology’ policy was his own attempt to take the kid’s mind off things, that a break from Spider-Man would hopefully mean a break from nightmares...but quickly thought better of it. Peter was more excited for the trip so far than he could have hoped, and he didn’t want to ruin it by bringing up the kid’s bad dreams.

“Alright, fine,  _ Mum,”  _ Peter grumbled. “We’ll drive like losers. But I swear, if I have to be stuck in a car for more than three hours…”

“Hey, FRIDAY,” Tony interjected. “Be a dear and find us some nice camping spots. Somewhere with guaranteed minimal social interaction, and keep it within a hundred mile radius for the hyperactive spider-child here.”

“ _ Finding suitable campgrounds,”  _ came FRIDAY’s prompt reply. Tony sat back and indulged in a few bites of his Pop-Tart, knowing that the process would take no longer than a minute or two.

“ _ Best match identified,”  _ FRIDAY said after a moment.  _ “River Bend Campsite in Layton, New Jersey. Would you like me to continue searching?” _

“No thanks, FRI,” Tony answered, before turning to Peter. “There you go, kid. A river  _ and  _ a short drive. I think we’ve found our winner.”

“Okay,” Peter nodded. “Let’s start packing.”

It was a haphazard affair, but two hours later, the last bag was loaded into Tony’s Audi and Tony was convinced that they hadn’t left anything behind.

“Are you sure?” Pepper pressed, who had already insisted on checking over all of their luggage three times but still somehow didn’t trust that they hadn’t missed anything. 

“Pep, this is insulting,” Tony announced. “ _ Insulting _ . Do you really not trust my ability to remember things?”

“Not one bit, Tony. Your track record is-”

“Embarrassingly against me, yes, thanks for the reminder,” he cut in. “Alright, fine. Don’t you at least trust your  _ own  _ memory? You’ve triple-checked everything, Pepper.”

“That was half an hour ago,” she argued. “And I most definitely don’t trust the kinds of havoc you could have wreaked since then.”

“You need to relax,” Tony told her. “We’ve got everything, Peter and I are gonna have a blast, and you don’t have to worry about anything but making sure Stark Industries doesn’t collapse in my week-long absence.”

“It shouldn’t be a problem,” Pepper smiled. “I’ve had experience in this kind of area before. The whole ‘ _ you were dying and went AWOL and didn’t tell me’  _ incident, remember?”

“See? I’ve improved since then,” he replied. “This time, I’m giving you notice.”

Pepper rolled her eyes, but leaned in to peck him on the cheek nonetheless. “Just keep yourself and Peter in one piece for seven days, okay?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Tony grinned at her, and he returned with a kiss of his own. “See you in a week, Pep.” Then, turning away from her, he motioned to Peter, who was waiting impatiently on the edge of the couch, his face a clear indication that he couldn’t wait a second longer.

“Come on, kid. A clump of trees in New Jersey awaits.”

~~~

Half an hour into the car drive, Tony was eternally glad that they’d found somewhere relatively close to the compound, because Peter clearly had  _ not  _ been exaggerating about his inability to tolerate long car rides.

“C’mon,  _ surely  _ we’re almost there,” the kid said, for what had to have been the ninety-seventh time.

“Peter, we’re thirty minutes into the journey,” Tony replied, torn between exasperation and amusement.

“ _ Ugh,”  _ Peter sighed dramatically. “Cars are so  _ inefficient.  _ Screw your Iron Man suits, can you please focus on inventing a car that, like, actually goes fast?”

“Excuse me,” Tony said, holding up a hand in disbelief. “Did I just hear you come for the speed of the Audi? ‘Cause I’ll have you know, Pete, that this bad boy can get up to 180 miles per hour in its prime. If you’re gonna blame something, go for the party poopers who set the speed limit to sixty-five.”

“ _ Ugh _ ,” Peter repeated, with somehow even more exaggeration than the first time. “Safety measures are overrated.”

“I’m starting to see why your Aunt May needed someone to babysit you.”

“Shut up. It’s not like  _ you’re  _ the king of safety, Mr Stark.”

“I can be very responsible when I want to be,” Tony retorted loudly. “See? Watch this. That car to your left is about to try and pass me because it thinks I’m going too slow - although little does it know, I’m already breaking the aforementioned speed limit. But anyway, the point is, if I  _ really  _ wanted to, I could really hit the gas and have a race with this asshole’s speed superiority complex, thus ensuring that he does  _ not  _ pass me and maintaining my dignity. But I’m gonna be humble  _ and  _ responsible  _ and  _ safe, and let him pass.”

Sneaking a glance at Peter, Tony saw the kid watch the four-wheel-drive swiftly pass the Audi with raised eyebrows.

“What did I tell you, kid?” Tony smirked. “I can be responsible.”

“You know, I might just have believed you,” Peter declared with a grin. “If you hadn’t  _ literally just said  _ that you’re breaking the speed limit.”

Tony glanced at the dashboard and swore. “Whoops. It appears I’ve been temporarily possessed by the gods of danger-seeking. But don’t panic, kiddo, we’re back at a nice boring 65 right about...now.”

“Ha!” Peter cried triumphantly. “So you admit safety measures are boring.”

“Never said they weren’t, kid. But they’re unfortunately necessary, always remember that,” Tony returned, and then frowned. “To be honest, I forget the whole point of this little dispute.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure I just won it, either way,” Peter said smugly. “But now I’m bored again. Wanna argue about something else?”

“Never knew you to be the oppositional type, Parker.”

“Turns out it’s a great way to not die of boredom.”

Tony couldn’t help but smile, caught up once again in the infectious web of Peter Parker. “All right, why not?” he found himself saying. “How about we hold a series of debates over Life’s Most Debated Debates.”

“Uh, what’s that supposed to mean?” Peter asked, looking dubious but interested.

“Okay, here’s an example,” Tony said, drumming his fingers lightly on the steering wheel. “Pineapple on pizza. Yes or no?”

“Yes,” Peter said at once. 

“Yes,” Tony agreed, and then snorted. “Okay, so that one didn’t work out.  _ You’re  _ supposed to be the one with the irrational opinions on everything, and  _ I’m  _ supposed to prove you wrong.”

“Well, you can try,” said Peter, grinning at Tony. “But since I already won the earlier argument-”

“Okay, that was  _ never  _ confirmed, I would just like to point out-”

“You literally forgot what you were arguing about!”

“ _ Annnddd  _ swiftly moving on from that point that I unfortunately have no argument for,” Tony interrupted loudly, “the next topic up for hot debate: peanut butter, chunky or smooth?”

“Smooth,” Peter responded, still grinning in that smug way of his. “What’s the point of turning peanuts into butter if you’re gonna leave half of them solid anyway?”

“ _ Yes!”  _ Tony exclaimed, and then quickly backtracked. “I mean, not that I agree with that. I absolutely did not. But  _ these  _ were the kind of irrational opinions I was looking for, kiddo.”

“What?” Peter said indignantly. “Are you telling me you actually prefer  _ chunky  _ peanut butter, Mr Stark?”

“Indeed I am,” Tony replied. “Smooth peanut butter is a monstrosity. Where’s the texture? Where’s the  _ spice?” _

“Where’s the peanuts? Crushed,  _ like they’re meant to be,”  _ Peter shot back.

“Hey, can we have some respect for the peanuts, please? If three-quarters of them are already getting torturously ground up, the least we can do is have mercy on the other quarter, and let them live out their whole, peanut-ty lives.”

“Until they get  _ eaten _ ,” Peter argued. “I’m pretty sure that cancels out the mercy argument entirely.”

Tony glanced sideways at Peter, smiling despite himself. “You on the debate team or something, kid? ‘Cause this oppositional thing is really working for you.”

“Ew, no,” Peter said, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “I  _ am  _ on the decathlon team, though, which is so much better-”

“Let me get this straight. The debate team warrants a nose wrinkle, but something with not one, not two, but  _ ten painful rounds of academic torture  _ is fine by your standards?”

“Hey, you should see some of the stuff we do,” Peter replied loudly. “Last term we were tied with this other school and there was one question left, and it was about the limits of functions, and I got it, Mr Stark, and then we beat the other team and they were  _ such  _ sore losers and you should’ve seen the look on Flash’s face, it was  _ so funny-” _

“Flash?” Tony repeated with interest. “You’re on a first-name basis with nerds from other schools?”

“Oh, no, he’s on my team,” Peter explained. “He goes to Midtown too. But he hates me, and it’s hilarious when I beat him at stuff because he gets so jealous…”

“Oooh, a high school arch-rival,” Tony said, grinning. “Boy, am I familiar with  _ those.  _ Alright, let’s go kid, tell me all about him. I wanna hear every single time you one-upped this guy’s ass.”

~~~

By the end of the car ride, Peter never wanted to sit down again. His muscles seemed to bunch under his skin, squirming uncomfortably with their drive to  _ go go go _ . He tried to ignore the restlessness in favour of sending sharp verbal jabs Mr Stark’s way and absolutely destroying the man at a game of ‘I Spy’ (having enhanced vision certainly wasn’t a disadvantage). His left leg had been jiggling nonstop, and he hadn’t missed the furtive glances his mentor had been sending the limb for most of the trip.

“Alright, kid. We’re here.”

As soon as the car slowed enough for Peter to get out, he was sliding out of the vehicle and looking around at exactly where ‘here’ was. It was a small car park, with loose gravel scattered across the ground and towering trees crowding around them on all sides. Peter stared up at the sky, impossibly blue, smiling slightly and heaving a sigh. Fresh air spilled into his lungs, a nice change from the noxious fumes of the city. 

“Oi, quit daydreaming. We’ve got about ten minutes of hiking ahead of us to get to the campsite, and then you can stare at the sky all you want, I promise.”

Peter grinned at Mr Stark’s grumpy tone and jogged to catch up to the man. Apparently the car ride had been just as strenuous for him as it had been for Peter, though he had a sneaking suspicion that  _ he  _ may have been the reason the journey was strenuous. 

He still couldn’t quite believe that he was on a camping trip with  _ Iron Man _ , but apparently that was his life now. As Ned has said when he texted his best friend to let him know he’d be without reception for the next week, he shouldn’t be surprised at this point. This camping trip was just the next thing on a long list of basically father-son activities that they’d done together, though neither of them seemed willing to admit that quite just yet. 

Peter trotted ahead of Mr Stark, grinning cheekily. “Come on, old man. What’s taking you so long?”

The man spluttered indignantly. “Excuse  _ you _ , I’m carrying all of our luggage, and all you have is that scrappy backpack!”   


“To be fair, Mr Stark, more than half of those bags are yours. Why do you need so much  _ stuff?” _

“You need to be prepared, kid. Anything can happen in the wilderness.”   


Peter guffawed loudly. “Please, the only thing you know about wilderness survival is the stuff you got from watching Survivor.”

“O ye of little faith. I know a thing or two about going it rough.”

“Yeah, uh huh. Is that why you’re grunting like a water buffalo right now? You’re Iron Man, I would have thought you’d be in better shape than this.”   


“Okay, that’s it. I’m officially kicking you out of our tent. You can sleep outside tonight.”

Peter laughed, but moved to grab a few of the bags from the man. “You’d never do that. You’d spend the whole night making sure I hadn’t been eaten by a bear or something.”

Mr Stark snorted, but didn’t argue, and Peter grinned victoriously. 

~~~

Ten minutes later, they made it to the campsite. They’d had to stop a few times so that Mr Stark could catch his breath, though the man claimed it was so he could ‘properly take in the scenery’. Peter was not convinced.

Peter stared at the open clearing in front of him, maybe half a football pitch in length and bordered by trees on three sides. The fourth side, directly across from where Mr Stark and Peter stood, opened up into a bubbling river, and Peter grinned at the sight. “Woah, it’s like, super...”   


“Empty?” Mr Stark cut in, toeing the aggressively green grass in distaste.

“Uh, I was going to say tranquil, but I guess that adjective works too.” The man wasn’t wrong. They were the only humans in sight, and while that sort of unnerved Peter, who was so used to being around people every hour of the day, he wasn’t complaining. 

“Hmph, FRIDAY said this was one of the most serene places in Upstate New York. I guess I just assumed there’d be more...sights to see.”

“But that’s not a bad thing, right? It means we don’t have to search that long to find the bathroom, at least,” Peter asked, a little worried that the man would make them turn around and go home. He’d seen the billionaire do more eccentric things.

However, Mr Stark evidently picked up on his tone, because he shot the boy a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry kid. In my experience, if it’s hard to get to, it’s worth it. I had to drive three hours with a hyperactive teenager and then hike for almost a whole mile to get to this place, so logic dictates it’ll be fantastic.”

~~~

They dumped their bags near the river, and then set about trying to pitch their tent. Keyword:  _ trying _ . One would expect the Western world’s greatest engineer and his genius intern would be able to pitch a tent with ease, but as it turned out, that was not the case.

“Mr Stark! Mr Stark, I’m stuck!”   


“Jesus Christ, Peter, how did you do that?”

“I was trying to connect the poles but then I sneezed and something went horribly wrong,” Peter wailed. The fabric of the tent was draped over his head like a veil, and one of the poles had caught in his belt loop.

Mr Stark jogged over and disentangled him from the mess, struggling to contain his laughter the whole time.

Peter glared at him, and rolled his eyes. “You know, if  _ someone _ had brought the instructions, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Not even the most specific instructions in the world would be able to plan for your clumsiness. It terrifies me that you do acrobatics a billion feet above the streets of New York with only a teeny weeny bit of webbing to keep you from plummeting to the ground.”

“Whatever. At least if we had instructions, the likelihood that we’d have to spend the night using this tent as a blanket instead of a shelter would be significantly smaller.”   


“We don’t need instructions! I’m one of the smartest men on Earth, and you’re a prodigy child and, frankly, I’m offended that you think we can’t do this.”

“Evidence suggests we can’t, Mr Stark,” Peter argued, gesturing at the heap of poles and fabric lying at their feet.

“Pish posh, we’ll get this done. We just need to… start again, maybe.”

Peter sighed, but reached down and turned the lump of fabric around until it looked like an actual tent, while Mr Stark plucked up the poles and started connecting them properly.

While their seeming inability to pitch a tent persisted, eventually they managed to prop up a half-decent structure. It leaned to the left a little too much to be natural, and one of the stakes at the back kept popping out of the ground like a jack in the box, but it would do. 

“See, Pete. Told you we’d get this done,” Mr Stark crowed, offering a celebratory high five to Peter, who accepted readily.

“Shit, kid, you’re covered in dirt!” the man exclaimed, wiping his hand on his shirt. Peter was, in fact, covered in dirt. Apparently, pitching a tent was filthy work.

“I mean, you’re not much better,” the boy huffed, crossing his arms. He perked up a second later though, staring excitedly at the river. “Can we go swimming? To, you know, wash off?” Peter was just going to ignore the fact that there were shower stalls not twenty feet away from them, and he hoped Mr Stark would too. The clear water moving sluggishly in the riverbed was far too enticing to ignore.

“Yeah, yeah. Alright.”

Peter cackled in delight, quickly stripping down to his boxers and sprinting off to the river. He reached the edge and dipped a toe in, shivering slightly at the chill of the water. It didn’t matter - he was hot from the exertion involved with putting up a tent anyway. He glanced behind him and saw Mr Stark making his way over at a much slower pace, watching Peter with amusement, and a hint of weariness. That man was so overprotective, honestly.

Peter looked around, and noticed a tree growing at the edge of the river, bowed low over the water. It was too perfect for him to resist, and with a running leap he jumped onto the trunk, clambering up the trunk with his sticky fingers. Tree climbing was  _ so _ much easier now that he was part-spider.

“Careful, Peter!” Mr Stark called, and Peter laughed from where he was perched high up in the tree.

“It’s alright, Mr Stark. I don’t think I physically  _ can _ fall,” he said as he edged along a branch that was sticking out over the river, parallel with the surface of the water. He threw his mentor a jaunty salute before backflipping off the branch.

The cold shocked him, and he expelled all the air in his lungs at once. For a moment, he was transported back to the night of Liz’s party, when the vulture dropped him in a lake and all he could see was bubbles and blackness as he thrashed for air in the icy depths, the billowing white parachute that had just been his saviour now dragging him down to his death.

But then his head broke the surface, and he sucked in a lungful of crisp air. The motion jerked him out of the past, and he reminded himself where he was. 

_ This is a river, not a lake, Peter. Know your bodies of water, jeez. _

“You all right, Pete?” Mr Stark called from where he was standing on the shore, and Peter waded over to him.

“Yeah. It’s really nice in here, Mr Stark, you should come in!”

Mr Stark hesitated for a second, before wading in. The man suppressed a shiver as the water reached his waist, before stopping.

“See, I told you it was nice!”   


“It’s downright freezing, Pete. I can’t feel my toes.”

“What? No it’s not. You’re just being dramatic.”   


“No, I am definitely not. You run hotter than the average human, remember?” 

Peter stopped for a second, and if he really strained his mind he could recall a vague memory of Bruce telling him something along those lines. “Oh. Huh.”

Peter shrugged the thought away, and then grinned mischievously as a devilish plan snuck its way into his mind. He whipped around to face Mr Stark squarely, cupped his hands, and then flicked what must have been a gallon of water at the man. 

Mr Stark stood stock still for a moment, mouth drawn into a thin line and eyes squeezed shut as beads of water dripped down his forehead and off his nose, making tiny ripples as they hit the water. It was at that moment that Peter realised that he may not make it out of the campsite alive.

The billionaire reached up a single, steady hand and wiped the water on his face away, and when he opened his eyes, his gaze was murderous. “Oh, you’re gonna regret that, kid,” he growled, before very aggressively splashing Peter.

The teenager shrieked, paddling furiously away from his mentor-turned-enemy, who was approaching steadily. In an effort to distract the man enough to run away, Peter shoved some water at him, and it was enough to push him back a few steps. 

Now regretting his decision to initiate a water fight, Peter turned tail and swam to shore, clambering up the tree he’d backflipped off of before in search of refuge. 

“Hey, no fair! Come down from there, spider-kid. Not everyone has enough youthfulness to climb a tree!”

In hindsight, Peter’s judgement may have been clouded by victory - it had been so close he could taste it. However, he’d been gifted with spider powers, not hindsight powers… if they were even a thing. Peter crouched low on the branch that stretched out over the water, and stood up. It was wide enough that he could balance pretty easily, but he guessed his powers had a little something to do with that. 

Peter jumped up and down on the branch slightly, causing it to jiggle in the air. “What, Mr Stark? Pissed you can’t try and drown me anymore?”

The man blanched as the branch swayed, and Peter cackled maliciously, his newfound refuge inflating his head to the point where he couldn’t see the branch splintering beneath him. There was an almighty crack, and then Peter was falling, falling, falling… straight onto Mr Stark. 

He crashed into the man, who made an aborted attempt at catching the falling teenager. It did not work, and both of them went toppling into the water. 

Peter was underwater yet again, except now there was another body under there with him. It was Mr Stark, and the knowledge of this was enough to keep him from spiralling into a flashback. A rough hand circled around his arm and hauled him up, and when Peter resurfaced, he was met with Mr Stark’s panicked face.

“You’re okay? You’re okay. Okay, okay, okay,” the man muttered mostly to himself as he patted Peter down, checking for any bumps, scrapes or breaks. 

“Yeah, I’m good, Mr Stark, I’m good. Sorry I fell on you,” Peter mumbled sheepishly, squirming away from the man and his frenzied hands. 

Mr Stark seemed to take a moment to recollect himself, before he chuckled dryly. “God, we can’t even get through a day without some sort of Peter-related mishap, can we?”

Peter took the man’s bullying as a sign that he was fine, and breathed a silent sigh of relief. He didn’t know what he’d do if he accidentally knocked Mr Stark unconscious and was then stranded alone, in the middle of the wilderness, with no phone reception. Probably something stupid that’d end in both of them getting killed.

They floated in the water for a little while longer, before the sun started sinking behind the hill, painting the sky in brilliant shades of orange and yellow. 

“Mr Stark, it’s golden hour!” Peter gasped, before wading back to shore and jogging over to their tent. He fumbled through his bag for a second before coming out with his phone, the Apple one that Mr Stark hated so much. “Come take a selfie with me!”

“What the fuck is golden hour?” the man grumbled, but the words held no bite because he’d already started clambering out of the river.   


“Ugh, Mr Stark, you act all hip and ‘down with the kids’, but I swear you live under a rock. It’s  _ golden hour _ . The hour is golden, and so is the light, which means everyone looks spectacular in every photo.”

Peter perched the phone in a tree and set it to a timer. “Okay, go, Mr Stark, go! Pose!” he yelled as he jogged back to where the man was standing a few feet away. “You better not do any bunny ears this time.”

Peter dropped into his signature Spider-Man pose next to the man, and Mr Stark flashed a peace sign. Once the timer was up and the phone snapped the picture, the billionaire rolled his eyes. “I’ve told you, kid, it was a  _ peace sign _ . Your head just so happened to be in the exact same spot that my hand was. It was a fluke, a crazy twist of fate!”

“Yeah, uh huh. You hear my tone? It’s the tone of someone who can see right through your bullshit.”

“Ah ah, that’s not a very nice word, now is it, Peter?”

The teen in question rolled his eyes. “Whatever, I’m hungry.”

“Well, I was about to suggest we go fishing-”

“ _ No! _ I’m not going fishing. I hate fishing.”

“What? Since when? I swear you were jabbering my ear off about how you’d never been fishing before and how much you wanted to not two weeks ago.”

“Yeah, well that was before I realised it involved tricking a fish into biting something sharp and then suffocating it and then stabbing it. It’s totally barbaric.”

“I can do all that stuff, it’s fine.”

“Uh, no. I’m not going to watch an animal die and then consume it’s flesh.”   


“How is that different to eating any other kind of meat that’s been killed in a factory?”

“Because I don't have to  _ see _ that. It’s called living in denial, Mr Stark.”

“That… is a whole other can of worms that I don’t feel like unpacking right now. It’s fine, I had a sneaking suspicion we wouldn’t fare too well at fishing anyway, so I brought along a backup,” the man said, wandering over to one of the many cooler bags resting inside their tent. He dug around for a few seconds, and then pulled out a pack of cheap beef sausages and bread rolls. “Here you go. Factory-killed meat, just for you.”

“Aw, thanks, Mr Stark.”

The man chuckled, before heading over to the barbecue and squinting at the knobs. It had gotten dark quickly once the sun sank behind the hills, and he was struggling to see. “Hey, kid! Can you bring a lantern over here please?”

“Sure thing, Mr Stark,” Peter called. He pulled a jumper over his head, because the night chill had set in not long after the sun left, and snagged a lantern.

Mr Stark tried to start a fire while the sausages cooked. He’d given Peter the job of watching over them, and he was proud to say that he was doing excellently. Nothing had been burnt as of yet, so it was really going as good as it could get.

A shout of triumph from behind him pulled his attention away from the sizzling sausages, and he was mildly surprised to see Mr Stark kneeling in front of a small fire. 

“Suck it, kid. Survivor didn’t teach me  _ that _ .”

“Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m impressed.”   


“Yeah, I’d hope so. That took me twenty minutes.” 

Peter chuckled and turned back to the barbecue. The sausages had gotten significantly crispier during his conversation with Mr Stark, and he hurriedly shoveled them onto a plate, carrying it and the buns over to the fire pit. His mentor had set up a couple of chairs and he plonked down in one, already halfway through a hot dog. The day’s activities had left him famished, and his appetite made itself clear as he chewed his way through seven tomato sauce slathered hot dogs. Mr Stark preferred to have his plain, or occasionally with barbecue sauce if he was feeling spicy, which seemed insane to Peter. Tomato sauce made  _ everything _ better!

“Slow down, kid, or you’re gonna choke.”

“Well, that’d be an interesting way to go, at least. Choking on sausage.”   


Mr Stark waited one beat, then two, before he let a strangled laugh slip out. “No! You’re too innocent for jokes like that! Peter, no!”   


“Mr Stark, I’m fifteen! I go to high school! I know things, I’ve  _ seen _ things. My innocence was torn to shreds the moment I walked into the bathroom to find a kid smoking some weed on the toilet.”  _ And also when I watched the life drain out of my Uncle’s eyes. _

“No!” Mr Stark wailed, clutching his chest. “Not my Peter, my sweet, innocent Peter. This is too much. I may just pass away!”   


“Good, then it’d be quieter, at least.”

~~~

Peter was stuffed. That was not something he got to say often, what with his enhanced metabolism and Aunt May’s tight food budget, but it was the truth for today. He’d inhaled seven hot dogs, followed by at least ten s’mores, though in all likelihood half of those s’mores were smeared across his face. They’d been very gooey.

Mr Stark seemed to be in a similar state of being filled to the brim. They were both dozing in their chairs by the fire, procrastinating having to move into the tent. The fire had long ago died down, with nothing but embers left and the occasional spark thrown up by a gust of chilly wind. Peter smiled to himself, feeling the marshmallow around his mouth pull uncomfortably. He couldn’t remember feeling this content in a long time.

When he fell asleep, the only dreams he had were of ginormous marshmallows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo, that's it! We hope you guys loved it, and we hope you'll let us know you loved it in the comments because they make our day. Kudos is also nice :)  
> Serious question though: do you guys reckon Peter would eat smooth peanut butter or crunchy peanut butter? And what do you think Tony's preference would be?  
> Those questions have led to a few little rows between us, so help us settle the debate!


	3. Tarzan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone, it's us, back with our third chapter of this little camping fic. We tried to get this one out in a reasonable time frame for you guys after the last chapter...we really didn't manage our time well on that one. But anyway, here it is, a chapter that we're pretty excited for you guys to read.   
> Hope you enjoy :)

“Mr Srk...Mr Srk…”

It started as a faint, annoying buzz. Tony rolled over and buried his head deeper into his chair, struggling to block it out.

“Mr Strk... _ Mr Strk…” _

It was growing louder. He didn’t want to acknowledge this. He groaned and kept his eyes firmly shut.

“Mr Stark...Mr Stark....Mr -  _ oh my God, Mr Stark, wake up, Mr Stark, it’s a bear!” _

Tony jumped to his feet, all desire for a restful sleep dashed away at the sounds of Peter’s panicked voice. His heart racing, his body barely functional, he stumbled to his feet, tripped over his own shoes, and went tumbling to the forest floor.

“What? What, kid? Where is it, fuck, where?” Tony cried, nearly bending over backwards to scramble to his feet again. He whirled around, his eyes scanning the forest wildly, heart beating somewhere in his throat-

-and came face to face with Peter, doubled over with laughter, practically wheezing at the sight of him.

Understanding flooded through Tony, and he was completely torn between amusement and outrage. He opted for the latter, purely because it was the more dramatic option.

“Peter, you little shit,” he yelled. “I was  _ sleeping.” _

Peter couldn’t respond for several more moments; he was still doubled over, gasping for breath, and the corners of Tony’s lips twitched despite himself. It took the kid a while to finally calm down.

“Oh my god,” he panted. “Oh my god, I think I just went into temporary cardiac arrest.”

“Oh,  _ you  _ did?” Tony demanded, folding his arms. “What about the poor soul who was trying to get his forty winks before the Boy-Who-Cried-Bear gave him an honest-to-god heart attack?”

Peter sniggered, looking dangerously close to dissolving into another fit of laughter. “I’m sorry, Mr Stark, but you were being so  _ boring.  _ The sunrise was  _ hours ago.” _

“The sun rises at six am, Peter.”

“And centuries have passed since then,” Peter complained. “I’ve been trying to wake you up for ages. I wanna do stuff.”

“Stuff like sending your poor old caretaker to his early grave?” Tony responded.

“At that rate, Mr Stark, you were already in the coffin,” Peter pointed out. “Man, you are a heavy sleeper. I even did that classic ‘throw-water-on-asleep-person’ thing, and it still didn’t work.”

“Joy,” Tony grumbled. “So you not only send me into cardiac arrest, but nearly drown me. Two murder attempts in one day, kiddo.”

“Hey, it was a last resort!” Peter protested. “It’s basically lunchtime, and all you’ve been doing is snoring louder than our ancient blender - and that thing is  _ ancient.  _ And plus-” he paused for a moment, a grin forming once more on his face - “it was pretty fucking hilarious, if I’m being honest.”

“Well,” Tony muttered begrudgingly, “I’m glad at least one of us got something other than life-threatening heart palpitations out of that little experience.”

“You know, it was actually a pretty believable story,” Peter reasoned. “There  _ are  _ lots of black bears in New Jersey.”

“Wow, kid, way to make me feel better.”

This only forced Peter to stifle another laugh, and Tony rolled his eyes as he brushed leaves off his clothes, trying to regain some dignity. Peter was still grinning broadly as he went over to the cooler and retrieved some basic breakfast items, and Tony struggled to maintain his irritated exterior with the kid looking so damn pleased with himself. 

Purely because he’d always had a soft spot for dramatics, Tony made sure to put on a show of muttering darkly to himself, sprinkled with a profusion of exaggerated side-eyes at Peter, as he fried up bacon, eggs and sausages over the barbecue. It was pretty much all he’d packed in terms of breakfast foods, and Tony had a strong feeling that both he and Peter would need to go on a serious rabbit-food diet to atone for all the cholesterol they were about to consume. 

“You sure you’re gonna be okay to cook all that?” Peter asked, a teasing note in his voice. “You know, with your heart palpitations? I’ve heard they can give you a nasty case of shaky hands.”

“Very funny, kid,” Tony said, relishing in a hyperbolised eye roll.

Tony barbecued the breakfast with, in his opinion, considerably more finesse than the sausages last night - he was definitely improving with this whole  _ camping  _ front. Once it was ready, he and Peter collapsed back into the camping chairs they’d slept in and tucked in.

“Mmm,” Tony said appreciatively. “Now this hits the spot. Heart palpitations or not, kid, you can’t deny I make a good barbecue breakfast.”

“Well, you overcooked the eggs slightly,” Peter pointed out with a grin, “but apart from that, I’d say it’s a pass, Mr Stark.”

“You can quit toning it down, kid. I know you’re secretly drooling over that bacon.”

It was Peter’s turn to roll his eyes.

~~~

“You know,” Tony mused once they had finished breakfast, “I can’t believe we didn’t get cold sleeping outside last night. Either this place is unnaturally hot or my campfire was just really, really good.”

“Mr Stark, when are you going to remember,” Peter sighed, “that I run hotter than you do?” 

Tony scowled. “Fine. Well,  _ some  _ of us have all the work done for us, then. I guess I’m just a tough cookie to crack.”

“Liar,” Peter grinned. “You were practically dying of hypothermia in the river yesterday. Speaking of which, can we go swimming again?”

“At this ungodly hour?” Tony repeated. “I’ve barely woken up, kid.”

“Mr Stark, it’s  _ eleven am.” _

“A traumatic time of day that no mortal should ever be awake for.”

“I’d hate to see what happened if the world needed saving before midday,” Peter muttered. “But come on, I’m getting bored again. The river is calling me.”

“Kid, we need to change it up a bit,” Tony said, grinning at the look of protest on Peter’s face. “I would suggest fishing, but apparently you’re all against that-”

“ _ Barbaric,  _ Mr Stark,” Peter shuddered.

“-so instead, why don’t we take the kayaks down to the river and attempt to go paddling?” Tony suggested. “Call it a compromise. We still get to see your river, but we don’t suffer the agony of getting wet.”

“Unless we capsize,” Peter put in with a grin. “You’d be the one to do that, Mr Stark.”

“Your lack of faith in your hired caretaker is a little insulting,” Tony said indignantly. “I’ll bet you five marshmallows that you’ll fall in first.”

“Okay,” Peter said, and Tony doubted the grin would leave his face all morning. “You’re on.”

They walked over to the Audi, unloaded the kayaks from the roof and carried them rather awkwardly over to the river.

“Should we get changed?” Peter asked as they stood on the river’s edge.

Tony shook his head. “No way, kid. I love this shirt. It’s giving me an extra reason not to fall in.”

“Oh, well, that’s okay then,” Peter shrugged. “It’ll just be even funnier when you do finally capsize.”

Tony chuckled. “All this talk, spider-boy. Have you ever even gone kayaking before?”

“Well, um, no,” Peter admitted. “But have  _ you?”  _ he quickly challenged.

“Uh...in categorical terms, I suppose not,” Tony said.

For a moment, they stood at the river, not speaking. Tony wondered if Peter was thinking the same thing as he was. He’d always thought of Peter as a bit of an optimist, but surely even  _ he  _ couldn’t ignore the blaring evidence that was pointing to anything but a positive outcome.

After a few more seconds, Peter spoke. “We’re  _ both  _ going to capsize, aren’t we?”

Tony grinned and thumped Peter happily on the back. “The odds definitely aren’t in our favour, kiddo. Now let’s go paddling!”

“You sound like a three-year-old who wants to go swimming in the wading pool,” Peter snorted.

“Oh, be quiet, you,” Tony said, rolling his eyes and smiling despite himself at the same time. Without further ado, he pushed his kayak fully into the water and waded into his ankles.

“Jesus,  _ fuck,”  _ he complained, as the biting chill of the water soaked through his shoes. “It’s somehow worse than yesterday.”

“Yay,” Peter grinned from behind him.

Tony turned to him, eyes raised in disbelief.  _ “Yay?  _ You wanna explain to me how that could possibly be interpreted as a yay-worthy moment, kiddo?”

“Well, like I keep telling you, it feels perfectly fine to me,” Peter laughed. “The stakes are only higher for you.”

Tony scowled. “This contest is definitely rigged in your favour, kid.”

Peter just laughed again and followed Tony into the water.

It took a few ungraceful minutes for them to collectively figure out how to enter their kayaks without capsizing right there on the spot, and Tony could only imagine how much Pepper would be judging them if she was here right now to witness the comical scene. Once they had finally managed to get comfortable, they pushed themselves off the embankment, picked up their paddles, and let themselves float out into the middle of the river.

“Okay, so how do we work this thing?” Peter asked, looking considerably wobbly on his kayak next to Tony.

“Come on, kid, how hard can it be?” Tony smirked. He picked up his paddles and began to churn them through the water - first the left, then the right, then the left again. He was sure there was some sort of trick to performing it with grace, but, he reasoned with himself, grace or not, at least he had the basic movements right.

“See, kid?” Tony called triumphantly, not looking up from his paddles. “Piece of cake.”

“Mr Stark,” came Peter’s voice. “You’re going backwards.”

Tony looked up and swore. He had, indeed, been going the wrong way, and he was now several feet back from Peter’s own kayak. Peter dissolved into another fit of laughter, and Tony, huffing slightly as he tried to regain his dignity, reversed his movements and paddled back over to Peter.

“Well, there you go, kid,” Tony announced. “A demonstration on what not to do. You just better be glad that I tested it first, so  _ you  _ didn’t have to look like the idiot.”

“Sure, Mr Stark,” said Peter, still snickering.

“Now, onwards!” Tony declared, and, making double sure that he was in fact paddling the right way, he began to move his kayak forwards, Peter tailing right behind him.

Their lack of experience in the art of kayaking was obvious; the journey was slow and tedious, especially in the early stages, where they kept veering off course or getting swept away by particularly strong currents. Tony liked to think, however, that after about the half an hour mark, he and Peter had started to gain a real feel for the sport. They started moving faster, the amount of times they veered off course decreased, and they were able to talk about something other than what nasty currents to watch out for.

“Would your Aunt May approve of this?” Tony asked Peter as they rowed through a slightly skinnier channel with picturesque trees lining either side of the river, their branches dangling over the water and creating a dappled sunlight effect.

“Probably,” Peter said thoughtfully. “She always likes me to get out and try new stuff. She’s the one who convinced me to join the decathlon team, you know.”

“Well, I’m gonna have to have a talk with her about that,” Tony said in mock-seriousness. “Subjecting you to four years of torturous, mind-numbing, extra schoolwork for  _ fun.  _ It’s basically child abuse.”

“You know, you’re really hating on something you don’t know much about,” Peter said. “Have you ever seen an academic decathlon before?”

“As a matter of fact, I have, kid,” Tony replied. “Back in the day, Yours Truly was a decathlon member himself.”

He could feel Peter staring at him in disbelief.

_ “You  _ were on a school decathlon team?” he asked incredulously.

“Correction: I was forced to,” Tony said. “There was a lot of pressure, you know.”

“Who forced you?” Peter asked with curiosity. “I didn’t know you had the mental capacity to follow orders.”

“My dear old man, kid,” Tony answered. “Needless to say, I didn’t enjoy it.”

Peter was silent for a moment, considering something. “That’s criminal,” he said eventually, folding his arms. “Before, I thought you were just one of those hypocrites who hated on it because you had nothing better to do. But the fact that you’ve  _ been on a decathlon team  _ and still don’t support it? That’s just unforgivable.”

“I think it was just the whole  _ organised  _ nature of the thing that I couldn’t handle,” Tony mused. “Following rules, you know, it’s just not the Stark way.”

“Jeez, Mr Stark,” Peter muttered. “I’m surprised you’re not a fully-fledged outlaw by now.”

“Yes, it’s a testament to my strength of character, isn’t it?” Tony grinned. “But apparently you’re even stronger, kiddo, because you’re on the team  _ and  _ you can actually follow the orders.”

“Like a normal human, yeah,” Peter pointed out. 

_ “And _ bonus points because you actually enjoy it,” Tony added, deciding to ignore the kid’s barb.

“I mostly just like the feeling of winning,” Peter said, with one of his trademark grins. 

“Yes, you told me all about each individual time you knew the right answer and this Flash upstart didn’t.”

“Oh yeah,” Peter remembered. “That was in the car ride, wasn’t it? Honestly, that was so traumatic, I think I’ve blocked it out of my memory.”

“Oh my god, Peter,” Tony sighed dramatically. “I think we’re just gonna have to stay here permanently, bud. I cannot handle another one of those drives with you.”

Peter laughed, opened his mouth to respond, and abruptly closed it again as his attention was caught by something ahead. Tony followed the kid’s eyes and saw, about twenty feet away, the unmistakable bubbling of the rapids.

“Would you look at that?” Tony said in delight. “This river is more than just a pile of murky green water. Looks like we’re going white-water rafting, kid, except with kayaks.”

Peter’s face split into a grin as he eyed the babbling, frothing water, which was running at considerable speed, creating bubbling divots where it ran over rocks and sending ripples onto either side of the river’s edge.

“Race you, Mr Stark!” he yelled excitedly, and he took off, paddling furiously towards the rapids. 

“You didn’t say go, you little-” Tony shouted, but quickly broke off as he realised that if he didn’t shut up, Peter was going to  _ win.  _ Tony refused to let this happen; losing was simply not something he could do. Paddling with all his might, he made a break for the rapids, right on Peter’s tail. They were three feet away - two feet away - one -

Peter and Tony both yelled in simultaneous mixes of shock and delight as they suddenly shot down the river, the rapids carrying them haphazardly over rocks and down miniature waterfalls. Tony’s kayak was spinning this way and that, bumping into one rock and then another, swaying from side to side and threatening to throw him overboard at any moment. The river was relentlessly fast, throwing him along at almost breakneck speeds, and Tony couldn’t have used his paddles even if he’d wanted to.

He could hear Peter laughing beside him, saw a glimpse of the kid’s face as their kayaks forcibly collided, only to be thrown away from him again. His kayak did a full 360-degree turn that, he had to admit, was pretty awesome, and then he let out an undignified scream as he felt his stomach drop, and his kayak tipped almost vertically down another mini-waterfall. He spun out on the rapids below, hearing Peter scream too as he was undoubtedly carried down the same path as Tony, tried to shout out to the kid that he’d somehow gotten ahead and he was clearly the superior white-water-kayaker -

-and then his kayak hit and rock, and he was suddenly being thrown overboard.

Tony somehow managed to swear underwater, thus getting a lungful of the murky river that he was quick to spit back out when he resurfaced. It was, quite frankly, freezing, and he coughed and sputtered unceremoniously. Peter shot past him, still firmly seated on his kayak, yelling, “Told you so, Mr Stark!”, and despite the fact that he’d just lost a bet, which Tony didn’t think had ever happened before, he found himself bursting into Peter-worthy, uncontrollable laughter.

The river continued to sweep Tony through the maze of rocks and rapids, and he focused on trying not to die of hypothermia as he was pulled along. After thirty more uncomfortable seconds, he felt the river begin to slow, the edges of the bank widening out again as the rapids died away. Finally, what had once been a vicious, frothing pool of rapids was nothing more than a calm, gentle current, and Tony breathed a sigh of relief as he floated easily along in the water.

Peter was waiting for him several feet downstream, holding Tony’s own deserted kayak steady with one of his paddles.

“How’s the water, Mr Stark?” he teased as Tony approached.

“You, kid,” Tony announced, as he tried to heave himself back into his kayak, “are a menace. You’re an adrenaline-seeking, rash-decision-making, elder-disrespecting, decathlon-loving-” But his rant was interrupted as the kayak, which he’d managed to half-haul himself onto, overbalanced and tipped sideways, sending him straight back into the icy-cold water.

Peter was laughing again when he resurfaced, and Tony probably would have joined in if he now wasn’t fighting violent bouts of shivering. Determined to get out of the water before it killed him, he hoisted himself up with newfound vigour and toppled uncouthly into the kayak.

“Well, this has certainly been a fall from grace,” Tony announced loudly, trying and failing to maintain his facade of grumpiness. “I hope you’re happy with yourself, kid.”

Peter grinned at him. “You fell in twice,” he said, with the air of someone delivering glorious news. “You know what this means, Mr Stark?”

“I’m going to die of hypothermia twice as fast?”

“I,” Peter declared happily, “get  _ ten  _ extra marshmallows tonight.”

Tony couldn’t help it. He grinned, too.

~~~

Peter woke with a jolt, sitting up so fast that the ten extra marshmallows he’d eaten moved around uncomfortably in his stomach. Boy, did he regret his decision to stuff them into his face now.

His marshmallow-related musings were interrupted by a noise outside, and Peter was reminded of the reason he’d woken up in the middle of the night in the first place. Something was wrong. His spider-sense was prickling uncomfortably at the nape of his neck, and adrenaline was starting to pump itself through his veins. There was electricity in the air, a sense of foreboding that Peter couldn’t quite describe, but it set him on edge.

Nevertheless, he tried to remain rational. Mr Stark was always telling him that being fast and strong was all well and good, but it meant nothing if he didn’t have the common sense necessary to back it up. Personally, Peter thought that was a little hypocritical, seeing as he could probably rattle off hundreds of irrational things that Mr Stark had done in the last week alone.

Speaking of the genius, maybe he was the one making the noise. The man could have just left the tent for a bathroom break - that was totally plausible. However, a grunting snore from behind Peter culled that idea. Mr Stark was still sleeping in the tent, sprawled out under his sleeping bag, which the man had unzipped and turned into a blanket before he went to bed. Apparently he didn’t like to “confine myself to one position. I’m a versatile sleeper.”

While he had to admit that he felt a little safer with the man in the tent, that meant that he still had no clue what the noise outside had been. Maybe it was all in his head? It wouldn’t be the first time he’d awoken in the middle night, paranoid and sure that there was  _ something _ waiting for him to let his guard down. That sounded right. It was just his imagination… right?   
He lay back down and closed his eyes, letting his head sink into the pillow, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something lurking outside their crappily-built tent. If worst came to worst, the structural integrity of their sleeping quarters was not something Peter would bet his life on.

His mind flicked to the bear prank he’d played on Mr Stark earlier today - or was it yesterday now? He had no clue what time of night it was. He’d done it all in jest, but he hadn’t been wrong when he said that there were lots of black bears in New Jersey. What if there was actually a bear outside the tent right now? Would Mr Stark believe him if he shook the man awake, rambling about yet another bear? 

The noise came again, and Peter was more alert now, enabling him to hear it more clearly. Several pairs of shuffling feet, and a muttered curse. His heart picked up the pace when he realised that there were far too many for it to be a bear, and that their footsteps were far too light. Besides, bears may be the smartest land animal in North America, but he doubted they’d reached the level of advancement necessary for understandable speech quite yet.

So that meant…there were people out there.

The realisation didn’t inherently spook Peter, because this was a campsite after all. It was totally normal for people to be here. Except…why had they arrived in the middle of the night? And, if his hearing was on point (and it usually was), they had come through the forest. The rustling of undergrowth was enough to attest to that. What sort of aspiring campers would trek through the forest in the middle of the night?

Unless, they weren’t aspiring campers.

“Are you sure our intel is right? Seems mighty out of character for Stark to go on an impromptu camping trip,” came a voice from outside the tent, coloured by a slightly Southern accent. 

Yep, okay, definitely not aspiring campers. 

Peter cursed under his breath and sent a panicked glance over to his mentor. The man was still passed out, his mouth slightly open and his head lolling to the side, the occasional nasally snort coming from somewhere deep inside his lungs. It would have been funny if Peter wasn’t halfway to Freak Out Town. There were strange people outside, at least five by his count, and they had already expressed their interest in finding Mr Stark. He could only assume their intentions weren’t pleasant.

He ran through his options in his head. He couldn’t wake up Mr Stark, because that was a loud affair that would probably take more time than Peter had before the creeps outside came bursting in and found both him and Mr Stark in their PJ’s. Peter didn’t want anyone to see him in his Hello Kitty pants. That also ruled out waiting for the people outside to come to him, which left only one option in Peter’s sleep-frazzled brain.

He had to go to them.

As he stood up, he briefly considered the fact that he had exactly zero weapons, and exactly zero ways to call for help. Cell reception was non-existent in this remote area of the forest, and his Spider-Man suit was locked in a cabinet in Mr Stark’s lab at the compound, awaiting their return. A voice that sounded oddly like his mentor’s was screaming at him from the back of his mind, telling him to  _ stop, wait, slow down, just think about this for a second before he went rushing off into trouble like he normally did _ .

However, Peter had never listened to Mr Stark before, and this time was not going to be any different. All he could think of was his mentor, defenceless in his sleep, being dragged off by the random weirdos outside. Peter wasn’t going to let that happen, and so with gritted teeth he stood up and poked his head out of the flap in the tent. 

He was still wearing his Hello Kitty pants, but the embarrassment of being caught in his PJ’s was outweighed by the panic that gripped his throat when he laid eyes upon the weirdos that had been prowling around the campsite for the past ten minutes. 

There were five of them, just like he thought, and they were all dressed in battered survivalist gear in various stages of decrepitude. Every single one of them were terrifying, their rough features exacerbated by the shadows cast by the trees overhead. 

They looked like they’d been raised in the wilderness, some Tarzan-type wannabes. However, unfortunately for Peter, they also looked like they knew what they were doing as they combed the other end of the campsite. Their footsteps were near silent on the forest floor, and the only reason Peter had detected their presence was because of his enhanced hearing, which also explained why Mr Stark hadn’t woken up at their arrival.

The Tarzan wannabes hadn’t noticed Peter yet, and he took the time to internally praise Mr Stark for bringing a dark grey tent. It blended in with the dark backdrop of the forest, making them almost invisible from a distance. Still, Peter wasn’t going to wait for one of them to notice the tent. He had the element of surprise, and that was something he could use.

Silently, he snuck out of the tent and into the surrounding trees. Step by step, he made his way closer to the Tarzan wannabes, his bare feet ghosting against the dry leaves and sticks. He made no noise, not even when a stick poked into his toe a little too hard. There was too much at stake here - his mentor was sleeping not twenty five feet away, blissfully unaware, yet painfully defenseless. Peter would not let him down.

The relative peace of the trees allowed him to think for a second. He hadn’t seen the infamous HYDRA symbol on any of their clothes, so these goons were hopefully not affiliated with the organisation. That still begged the question: who  _ were _ they affiliated with? There was no way five random buffoons would band together to hunt down Tony Stark of their own accord. There had to be someone else behind the wheel of this operation, but who? Mr Stark was a powerful man, which meant he had his fair share of powerful enemies. Any one of them could be behind this. 

He crept closer and closer, until he was nearly upon them. Naturally, that was when everything went to shit.

One of the Tarzan wannabes, who Peter internally named Bear Grylls because of his remarkable resemblance to both the celebrity adventurer and an actual bear, looked up just as Peter left the cover of the trees and stepped out into the open. If it weren’t for the dire situation, Peter probably would have laughed at the man’s expression. He could only imagine how disconcerting it must be to see a scrawny teenager dressed in Hello Kitty PJ’s emerge from the forest while you’re hunting down a billionaire superhero.

Bear Grylls let out a half-strangled yell, and his four companions whirled around to face Peter. All of them were men, and Peter couldn’t help but roll his eyes at how trite it all was. 

“Hello, boys,” Peter said, deciding to at least spice the interaction up a bit now that he’d lost the element of surprise. “It’s a bit past your bedtime, wouldn’t you say?”

There was a moment of shocked silence, and then one of Bear Grylls’ companions came running full tilt at Peter. The response was sudden, and aggressive, but not well thought out. Peter just dodged the man, who was built like an ancient redwood tree and therefore about as agile as one. Speaking of trees, the man, unable to stop or slow his own momentum, ran straight into the one behind Peter and knocked himself out cold. 

“Well, that was easy,” Peter remarked, staring at the limp body of Tree-guy and struggling not to laugh. 

The pattering of footsteps behind him alerted Peter to the approach of Tree-guy’s companions. He turned around to face them, and immediately had to duck a powerful swing from Bear Grylls. The man’s other fist was waiting for him though, and collected solidly with his jaw. Peter’s teeth clacked together, and alarm flashed through his brain when he realised that his four opponents were far more agile than Tree-guy had been. Peter straightened up and kicked his foot into Bear Grylls’ stomach as hard as he could. The man stumbled back, and Peter grinned mischievously. 

His spider-sense blared at him, and he brought his elbow up to connect with the temple of whoever had tried to sneak up behind him, whirling around to grab their arm and flip them over his back.

Something thunked against the back of his head, knocking him forward and sending sparklers swimming through his vision. He stumbled to the ground and dug his fingers into the dirt, trying desperately to affirm that the world wasn’t spinning like a merry-go-round on the fritz. After a few blinks, everything righted itself, and Peter scrambled to his feet not a second too late. There was a faint whooshing sound, and he looked down to see a serrated knife, the blade alone about five inches long, sticking out of the ground where his head had been not moments before. 

Peter gaped up at the guy who had thrown it. The man was sporting a rather stunning head of hair - jet black and pulled into a ponytail to rival that of Gaston - but Peter wasn’t about to let that distract him. 

“Not cool, dude!” he squeaked, pulling the knife out of the ground and flipping it so that it was facing the right way. If these guys got to fight with weapons, then so did he. The only issue was, he was more of a non-lethal weapon kind of guy and the knife, glistening murderously in the moonlight, felt rather lethal in his hand. He had almost no experience with knives, aside from dodging them (or occasionally  _ not _ dodging them) on patrol, whereas Gaston seemed to know his stuff, if the way he was twirling a second knife in his hand was anything to go by.

Peter chuckled nervously, and decided to just go for it. Was there a better time to learn a new skill than when your entire life depended on it? 

He paced towards Gaston, footsteps quick and sure, and the man grinned wickedly. When Peter was close enough, he took a half-hearted swing at Gaston with the knife - he really did not like how the blade was so… pointy.

Gaston appeared to have no such qualms, as he swiped viciously at Peter, who just managed to dodge out of the way. A follow-up punch from the guy succeeded in connecting with his wrist, and Peter reflexively dropped his knife. Great. He’d just lost his only weapon.

Gaston launched a series of attacks, and Peter’s life became a series of dodges. His senses were turned to the max, and every muscle in his body was tensed for the next flash of moonlight on a blade that would alert him to the path of the weapon. 

_ Swipe. Dodge. _

Peter danced in a circle around the guy, whirling uncomfortably close to the man’s flailing arms. He reached Gaston’s back, and launched himself at it, clinging there like a small child getting a piggyback. Gaston roared in anger, and started bucking uncontrollably, trying in vain to get Peter off, but Peter wouldn’t budge - he’d known his sticky fingers would be useful for something. The man continued bucking, and Peter was momentarily transported to the time he’d ridden a mechanical bull at Coney Island. He’d lasted about thirty seconds before he’d been launched off by a particularly violent buck, and fractured his wrist in the landing. It had hurt like a bitch, but the video that Uncle Ben took of the accident was pretty spectacular, and they’d gotten ice cream once he was released from the ER with a cool new cast.

There was a tearing pain in his side, and Peter cursed loudly as he was jerked out of his memories. His lapse in attention had cost him dearly, and there was now a knife sticking out of him, just beneath his ribs.

Well,  _ that _ wasn’t very good.

Gaston backed into a tree, smashing Peter against the trunk harshly. The bark tore at his back, leaving it stinging and achy, and he dropped off the man’s back. He hooked his leg around the man’s own leg and pulled him down to the ground. Peter needed to end this fight  _ now _ .

He grabbed a solid branch from the ground next to him and brought it down on Gaston’s chest with a thump, leaving the guy heaving for breath. Peter scrambled up, a hand clasped against his side as he stared at the one guy left. The knife in his abdomen was not enough to distract him from the fact that his last opponent kind of looked like a himbo. He was blond, jacked, and staring at his fallen companions stupidly. Peter almost felt bad when he kicked Himbo in the nuts. The poor guy had never even stood a chance, but Peter needed to end this now.

“Who… who the fuck are you?” Bear Grylls wheezed from the ground, still trying to regain control of his lungs, the baby. 

“Sorry, I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” Peter said, smiling sweetly despite the fact that his side felt like it was tearing itself apart. Sharp fingers of pain stretched their way out from the wound, and even though the knife was keeping most of his blood where it was supposed to be, he could still feel a warm, wet patch spreading it’s way across his skin and absolutely ruining his favourite shirt. 

Shit, he was  _ freaking out _ . The Tarzan Wannabes were still far too close to Mr Stark for his liking, and there was also the small issue of him having a hole in his side. To make matters worse, his opponents were starting to pick themselves up off the ground, and it was back to five-on-one. 

_ Shit, shit, fuck _ . He needed to get these guys away from the campsite  _ now _ . Seeing no other option, he bolted, running in the opposite direction of the campsite, and straight into the trees, choosing to ignore the burning pain in his side in favour of staying alive. 

Branches slapped his face and left long, stinging marks on his uncovered arms, but his plan had worked. The Tarzan-wannabes were following him, all attempts at stealth left far behind as they crashed through the trees. He could see Bear Grylls coming up behind him on his right, so he banked left. 

The one guy that Peter hadn’t named yet was coming up fast behind him, and he wasted a few seconds of precious time staring at his respectable monobrow.  _ He looks like that Bert guy from Sesame Street _ , Peter thought absently, before he picked up the pace a bit so that Bert would quit nipping at his heels.

He crashed into a small clearing, and breathed a sigh of relief. He’d lost the Tarzan-wannabes somewhere in the forest, and now it was just him and his throbbing knife-wound, aching legs, and seizing lungs. He also had no clue where he was in relation to the campsite, so that was brilliant. This whole thing was just one big, brilliant situation.

It got even more brilliant when seven more men emerged from the trees in front of him. They were all dressed in the same survivalist gear that the Tarzan-wannabes had been wearing, and Peter got a sick feeling in his gut. It was exacerbated only when Bear Grylls and his maniac friends emerged from the trees behind Peter, and he realised he hadn’t been escaping them at all. They’d been chasing  _ him _ , herding him, to this one spot, where he would have less chance of running away than a whale in the middle of the Saharan Desert. 

The seven Tarzan-wannabes in front of him edged closer, and the guy in the middle shot a disgruntled look at Bear Grylls and co. “Who’s this joker? You know Tony Stark isn’t a prepubescent boy, right?”

“I know that,” Bear Grylls growled back, and Peter could hear the scowl in his face. “We were at the campsite and he just appeared out of the trees. Attacked the shit out of us.” 

“You were beaten by a prepubescent boy?” the guy in the middle asked, perplexed. Peter decided to call him Anthony because his brain was too tired to come up with anything else.

“Obviously not, because he’s been stabbed, and he’s surrounded.” 

“I’d just like to take the time to say that I’m not a prepubescent boy. Like, c’mon, man. I’m mid-pubescent,  _ at least _ ,” Peter said, slightly hurt that Anthony seemed to think he was a grand total of twelve-years-old. “Also, bye.”

While the two sections of the Tarzan Wannabes had been bickering, Peter had discreetly shuffled closer to the edge of the clearing. If he couldn’t get away from them by going left or right, he’d go up. With that, he leapt up into the trees, ignoring how the movement tugged fiercely at his wound. The pain was excruciating, and he was on the verge of collapse, but he wasn’t safe just yet. Falling unconscious now would be akin to a death wish.

He jumped from tree to tree until the furious cries of the Tarzan Wannabes faded away, and his consciousness nearly followed suit. He wobbled in the tree he was in, and would have fallen to the forest floor if it weren’t for his blessedly sticky fingers on a branch. 

_ Just a few more seconds, Peter. Just make it to the top of the tree. _

He whimpered to himself, the pain and exhaustion hitting him full force as the adrenaline slowly left his veins. It was about the only thing that had been keeping him going, and his knees shook with his own weight. Somehow, he managed to drag himself further up the tree, and nestled himself securely in the fork of the trunk. His bare feet, covered in tiny scratches from his mini marathon on the forest floor, ached terribly, as did his side. He glanced down at it, and his brow creased worriedly at the amount of blood that had already leaked out of the wound, despite the fact that the knife was still in there. Perhaps running through the forest wasn’t the best thing to do after being stabbed.

He took a deep breath, resting his head against the tree. In the next breath, he’d slipped into unconsciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...yeah, that happened.  
> A lot of you already predicted it in the comments, and for those that didn't, our only response is: did you really think we were going to survive on writing a fic that was entirely fluff? Who do you take us for - normal, balanced, mentally stable authors??  
> Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed the change of pace! Kudos and comments are always appreciated :D


	4. Hansel and Gretel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, we are back at it with another chapter. We know we left you guys on a kind of intense note last time, so I won't delay this any longer. Hope you enjoy!

When Tony next cracked open his eyelids, it took several protracted moments before he even remembered where he was. Once he had identified that he was only sleeping in the tent he’d set up with Peter, and hadn’t instead joined some foreign circus in Madagascar, he turned his attention to the fact that, unlike yesterday, he’d been graciously allowed to sleep in for as long as he wanted.

This observation surprised him slightly. Firstly, because Peter’s ability to patiently entertain himself was probably outmatched even by a hyperactive Labrador, and it struck him as downright incredible that the kid had managed to let Tony wake up on his own terms. But secondly - and ultimately more importantly, Tony thought - he’d been so sure the kid had already attempted to wake him at some point. Tony hadn’t opened his eyes, of course, still hoping against hope that Peter would give up if he received no response, and because of this he was unsure what time, exactly, he’d heard the noise; it could have been five am in the morning for all he knew, and he certainly wouldn’t put it past the kid. But Tony had definitely heard some kind of disturbance at  _ some  _ point during his attempt to get a good night’s rest, and it so acutely mirrored Peter’s bear prank yesterday morning that Tony was left with little doubt that he was the culprit.

Groggily rubbing his half-unresponsive eyes, Tony glanced over to his left and saw that the kid in question had already left the tent. This left a confirming seal over Tony’s suspicions - Peter had attempted to wake him, realised that Tony slept heavier than a dead wombat, and had given up and gone to make breakfast or something. Chuckling slightly to himself, Tony clumsily dressed in pants and a flannel shirt and exited the tent.

He blinked furiously, adjusting to the harsh glare of what could only be late-morning sunlight. A quick glance at the watch still fixated on his wrist confirmed this; it was, once again, eleven in the morning. He blamed the kid for setting his body clock to this grossly early wake-up time, and set about looking for him, a long list of sleep-related complaints at the ready. 

Surprisingly, Peter was not making breakfast, as Tony thought he would have been - although in hindsight, this had been a pretty bold assumption on his part, since Peter wasn’t exactly known for his profusion of culinary skills. Frowning slightly, he figured the kid must have gotten antsy and decided to take a walk - to that godforsaken arctic-esque river, probably. He set off at a drowsy stagger, because it was still way too early for Tony’s liking and his muscles hadn’t fully acclimated to movement yet.

“Peter,” he called grumpily as he trudged over to the river’s edge, “I know you have a secret love for  _ Titanic,  _ but it’s too early to be doing a recreation of Jack’s death scene.”

But his irritated barb was heard by nothing but the wind, as Tony soon discovered when he came to the edge of the bank and found the river entirely empty in both directions. 

He was suddenly feeling less sure of himself now that Peter’s two biggest places of potential for an early-morning activity were knocked off the list. The river stretched pretty far along before it disappeared around bends, blocking the rest from Tony’s view, but he was sure that the kid wouldn’t have been able to trek further than that in the time since he’d woken up. And even if he  _ had  _ miraculously arisen at six in the morning just to go for a long-distance paddle, Tony couldn’t imagine the kid being so keen on doing it alone. After all, hadn’t he bugged Tony nonstop yesterday to make him wake up, just so he’d have someone to do things with?

_ Well, maybe he’s seen the error of his ways. Maybe he’s gone all independent, to give you your beauty sleep. _

But Tony somehow couldn’t picture Peter going off on a one-man exploratory expedition without any sort of motivation other than boredom, especially when the boredom could be quashed in a much more entertaining way, such as  _ waking Tony up _ . It just didn’t fit the way the kid worked.

Tony’s lack of certainty about Peter’s whereabouts was now slowly and surely trickling into the first inklings of panic, and it was with much less grumbling and stumbling that he made his way back to the campsite. He stood rooted to the spot, his heart beating slightly more erratically than normal, trying to think. 

It took him an embarrassingly lengthy amount of time to think of the most obvious place to check, which was right back where he started - in the tent. Not that he expected Peter to be there; he’d been tired, but the tent had definitely been empty when he’d woken up, no mistaking that. But maybe he could see if Peter had gotten dressed - or, even more optimistically, if he’d had the foresight to leave Tony a note, explaining where he’d gone and thus easing Tony’s worries instantly.

Tony should have known that the false sense of hope that swelled within him at this notion was too flimsy to last. He strode over to the tent and whipped back the zipper-door, peering inside with an almost desperate sort of optimism. Clambering inside, a quick rummage through their things revealed that Peter had left no note - and, more worryingly,  _ he hadn’t even put on any clothes. _

All visions of Peter trekking happily through the forest, blissfully unaware of the panic he was causing Tony, were instantly dashed away. If the kid had intended to do anything this morning, he would have surely gotten changed out of his pyjamas first. Before he could stop them, horrible images began to swarm, unchecked and panic-ridden, in his mind: Peter, sleeping happily and uncaringly in the tent...a black bear ripping its way in and taking him captive, maybe for his next meal...Tony sleeping peacefully on, mistaking the sounds of Peter’s fearful yells for another playful bear prank…

Oh, the irony. It was physically  _ hurting him. _

But yet, as Tony looked around again, his heart now losing all pretence of beating steadily and instead threatening to go into the cardiac arrest he had so carelessly joked about yesterday, there didn’t seem to be any signs of a struggle in the tent. Peter’s bed was hardly rumpled; there were no clothes strewn about, everything was in one piece, and even the zipper-door was in perfect condition, which certainly wouldn’t be the case if a bear had indeed decided to come investigating in the night. The whole thing was so unbearably bewildering that Tony thought he might almost  _ prefer  _ to know what had happened, even if the details were awful - the uncertainty of it all was only adding to the panic, which was now on the verge of suffocating him entirely -

“Okay, get a grip, Stark,” he muttered to himself. Talking aloud seemed to help in moments like these, stupid as it seemed. “Just  _ think,  _ for a moment. Get out of this tent and think.”

Taking some deep, steadying breaths, Tony hastily exited the tent for the second time, this time not even bothering with closing the door. He half-walked, half-staggered into his camp chair by the fire, and then immediately stood up again, unable to sit still.

“Think…” he muttered again, feeling the last pieces of his own deception spilling away, as he stopped even bothering to pretend that everything was fine, and let the worst-case scenarios consume him entirely. The absence of any obvious intrusion in the tent meant that whoever had taken Peter had done so stealthily - this was not the work of an animal - it was the work of a  _ human - _

Still, Tony reasoned with himself, trying desperately to at least retain some sense of logic, maybe no one else had been involved but Peter. Maybe the kid had had another violent nightmare, one that had caused him to go sleep-walking…maybe he was lost in the forest right now, disoriented and hungry. 

Over and over the thoughts circled in his head, and his pacing continued to grow more agitated, his head spinning in unrelenting circles as he stared unseeingly at the ground and thought-

_ Wait. _

Tony stopped dead. 

Something on the ground was standing out to him, something that contrasted sharply with the dull brown of the dirt. Even in his state of total panic, it was impossible to miss.

Blood.

Well, he thought vaguely, as his heart began to pump somewhere in his throat, there went the pretence of Peter being lost in the woods.

Tony wasn’t aware of thinking much, after that. There was no time for things as irrelevant, as positively  _ laughable,  _ as thinking things through, as staying rational. He barely knew what he was doing, his legs carrying him forwards of his own accord, his mouth dry, the idea of intaking regular oxygen all but abandoned. All he could do was follow the red trail, which was glistening up at him like an accusatory red line.

_ You lost him. Two days in, and something’s already happened. What is May going to say? _

But it was more than just the wrath of Peter’s aunt that had him on the verge of a fully-fledged panic attack, and it wasn’t hard to figure out what exactly this was, even in his state of near shutdown.

On and on the blood trail seemed to stretch, and the longer it stretched, the more Tony’s chest tightened, until he considered it a wonder that he hadn’t dropped dead from plummeting oxygen levels. Dimly, he noticed other things too - the surrounding bushes looked trampled and flattened, the dirt was scattered and messy, the blood sometimes sprayed on surrounding trees. These only added to his vague sense of all-consuming panic. He knew what the signs were, even if he couldn’t,  _ wouldn’t, _ think them out loud.

And then, just when Tony was becoming seriously terrified by what he might find at the end of the seemingly-endless blood trail, he realised that there was a figure up ahead in the trees.

He hadn’t even been aware that he’d broken into a run, but evidently he had at some point, because it took considerable effort to slow himself to a dead stop. He stood stockstill, his heart thumping wildly as he looked at the figure not ten feet away. They were leaning against a tree in a casual, careless sort of way, and the idea of being  _ relaxed  _ felt so foreign to Tony that he called out shakily, “Who are you?”

“Well, well,” came a drawling, female voice. “Tony Stark. Will wonders never cease?”

If he was being honest with himself, he hadn’t expected a woman. Visions of a seven-foot tall, jungle-haired, Tarzan-wannabe had immediately flooded to his mind, but not a woman, and certainly not one as eloquently spoken as this. And then again, he realised with a wave of comprehension, that was under the impression that this woman before him was, in fact, Peter’s attacker. There was no obvious evidence that pointed to this being the case - although the fact that she had been so casually situated right in the centre of a trail of blood certainly by no means painted her as an angel.

At a loss of whether to accuse her or ask her for information, and still feeling that acute sense of overwhelming, suffocating panic, Tony voiced instead possibly the most irrelevant and easily-answered question. “How do you know me?”

The woman laughed, and despite the entirely harmless nature of this sound, something about it set Tony’s bones on edge. Maybe it was the way she sounded so delighted, as if she wanted nothing more than to be stranded in a forest, standing next to a considerable trail of blood.

“My dear Tony, you certainly haven’t changed,” she said, her face still concealed by the shadow of the tree. “All talk, no substance. The intelligence they proclaim so confidently, so  _ admiringly,  _ as one of your greatest qualities, unmatched by any other living mortal, they say, quickly disintegrates under the slightest bit of scrutiny. You only have to get a handful of feet away from the so-called genius himself to realise that the real thing is nothing but a wistful shadow of the rumours.”

Any reservations about this woman’s involvement in Peter’s disappearance that he had previously been attempting to maintain were abruptly abandoned. No innocent soul would be standing there so purposefully, speaking so calmly despite the venom in her words. This woman was clearly not a fan, and although Tony was not usually unnerved by this, having dealt with plenty of Stark-haters before, the unique set of circumstances had him feeling distinctly uneasy. Firstly, that this woman had apparently tracked him down in the middle of a deserted campground, and secondly, that she clearly had something against him, and thirdly, that Peter had gone missing on the very same morning he had met her.

And speaking of Peter-

“Look, I don’t have time for this,” Tony snapped, choosing to ignore what his intuition was screaming at him and, simply for sake of time, go on pretending that she was nothing more than a woman with an unrelated grudge. “Whatever agenda you’ve got, whatever distant relative I somehow caused the death of, it can wait, alright? I have bigger problems to deal with. Have you seen-”

But the woman cut him off before he could finish. “I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss, Tony. Another distasteful habit that you picked up in your clumsy rise to undeserved fame.”

“You wanna talk about my flaws? That’s fine, I can arrange you a meeting with my business partner,” Tony all but growled. “She’ll be happy to offer you an alphabetised list, as well as some coping strategies for dealing with them. But right now-”

Once again, he was cut off.

“You are searching for a boy, are you not?” the woman interrupted, sounding almost bored.

The connection was now practically screaming in his face, far too obvious to be ignored any longer. Tony stopped dead, a ripple of apprehension flooding through him. 

“And you know that how?” he challenged, dreading the answer.

The woman laughed again, and this time it sounded distinctly malicious. “Oh, I should have brought my camera…the look on your face! But then you were always one for theatrics, weren’t you, Tony? You lived in the limelight...I must say, it’s rather pathetic, the mess you’ve become as soon as the paparazzi turned their attention to your fellow Avengers over you alone.”

Despite his ever-growing feeling of barely contained panic, Tony could not suppress the surge of intense curiosity that sparked at these words. This woman knew a little too much...her words were a little  _ too  _ personal…

“Who are you?” he asked again, all too aware that this could not be a coincidence. She hated him,  _ and _ she knew he was searching for Peter…

“Your memory hasn’t improved, I see,” the woman replied amusedly. “Or maybe that’s just your half-baked deductive reasoning showing again, the product of a lifetime of mistakes. I thought you would remember me - but maybe you need the face to go with the words…”

And she stepped out from under the tree.

Tony suddenly found himself face-to-face with the unidentified woman, and for a moment, he was taken aback. Tall, slim and breathtakingly beautiful, she looked to be of Asian descent, possibly Chinese or Japanese, he thought. She had silky black hair that fell gracefully past her shoulders, smooth skin and captivating, almond-shaped chocolate eyes. She was dressed in a get-up that reminded him forcibly of Natasha; leather pants, glossy practical boots and a tight-fitted black shirt. For several long seconds, he stared at her, neither comprehending nor recognising. And then, through the panic and the confusion, he felt a glimmering of understanding spark within him, and he realised she was familiar somehow…

“Veronica?” he realised, with a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Veronica Marquez?”

Veronica laughed again, and now that he had a face to go with the sound, there was absolutely no mistaking her identity; he remembered that careless, almost icy laugh of hers as though it were yesterday.

“Knew we’d get there in the end,” she drawled. “You’re looking a little worse for wear, Tony. Has the steady decline of Stark Industries since our partnership finally taken its toll on you?”

“Our  _ partnership,”  _ Tony spat, “was bullshit and you know it. You were using me for the money. Pepper discovered the evidence right under your perfect nose. Your business went corrupt, you were selling to terrorist groups and scamming the few legitimate customers you had. Don’t act like you did a shred of good for the business.”

“Come on, Tony,” Veronica sighed melodramatically. “Surely even you can’t ignore the pitiful signs staring you right in the face? Your Avengers team has broken up, you yourself single-handedly unleashed a robot that caused an entire city to collapse, and I believe you even had to give the duty of CEO over to that Potts woman a few years ago because of your own incompetence. You’re failing without the Marquez partnership.”

“I’m doing just fine, thanks,” Tony snapped. “You know what interests me, Veronica? Why you instigated our so-called  _ partnership  _ in the first place. We barely exchanged two words in high school.”

Veronica actually winced, in a drawn-out, exaggerated sort of way. “Oh, it pains me to converse with someone so naive,” she groaned. “I suppose you think that not talking equates to not  _ thinking?  _ It would make sense, since all you do is blabber, and I guess you have to cook up  _ some  _ half-logical thoughts every now and then, or else your clumsy machines would be going backwards. But, my oblivious Tony, the very reason I did not talk to you is  _ because  _ I hated you.”

“A nice sentiment,” Tony snarled, acutely aware that he was wasting precious seconds to find Peter. “But I really have to-”   
“Again with the dismissiveness, Tony. Didn’t I say this would be worth your while? I was jealous of you, you see,” Veronica went on, sounding as though she was thoroughly enjoying herself. “You and the attention you received, everywhere you went. Howard Stark’s son, the promised prodigy. No one noticed that you were nothing more than a few baseless inventions, a few lucky guesses and a few million dollars richer than the rest of us, which made it much easier to pass your tests, I’m assuming, with all that bribing money.  _ You  _ were the star of everything: the teachers all considered you their top student despite your clear aversion to anything involving even minuscule amounts of effort; you were drooled over by everyone from the Headmaster down; you were even the star of the little decathlon team, even though you publicly expressed your hatred for it and  _ I  _ worked tirelessly every lunchtime organising club meetings. In fact, I’m willing to safely bet that I worked a hundred times harder than you at everything, Tony, but it was always  _ you  _ that was recognised.”

“Great,” Tony said loudly. “So you’re the typical jealous schoolgirl with a grudge, almost a textbook example, might I add. You partnered with me to take down Stark Industries, as payback for the years of oh-so-terrible neglect. Now, ignoring the fact that I think a part of me just died at how much of a painful  _ cliche  _ you are, I have something I need to be doing-”

“I already told you, Tony,” Veronica sighed in a bored voice. “I know you’re searching for the boy. It has been rather amusing, actually, watching you. You sweet, unobservant thing.”

Tony felt another thrill of apprehension. “What are you on about?”

Veronica laughed again, sounding more amused than ever. Tony, on the other hand, felt close to strangling her with his bare hands. “I swear to God, if you don’t tell me-”

“Relax, Tony,” Veronica said carelessly. “I’m only teasing. You have to understand, this is all rather hilarious from my point of view. The great Tony Stark, renowned for the creation of the incredibly detailed, incredibly complex, incredibly difficult Iron Man suit, failing to notice that this  _ boy  _ he’s searching for is lying unconscious in the tree above my head.”

Instantly, his blood ran cold, his heart pounding relentlessly in his ears as he processed what, exactly, she was saying. He didn’t want to look. He didn’t want to see, but he  _ had  _ to, he had to see if she was lying-

Dread coursing through every inch of his body, Tony slowly raised his head.

There, crumpled in a fork between two visible branches, was Peter. His eyes were closed, his body was limp, and there was a considerably large patch of blood staining his torso, the source of which became apparent within seconds. A large knife was jutting crudely out of Peter’s stomach, the handle catching the light and glinting down at Tony almost tauntingly.

Tony looked back at Veronica, rage such as he had never known bubbling within him. “You-”

But he stopped as she realised - she had a gun pointed at him.

“If I’m being honest, Tony,” she said casually, her finger poised on the trigger, “I don’t even know the boy’s name. He was never part of the plan, although he was a rather annoying hindrance to my men. But it doesn’t matter now. He’ll bleed out in that tree, and you’ll do the same on the ground, killed by a person who’s waited a long time to do so. I hear there are many who want revenge on you, Tony, but if I do say so myself, I don’t think any of them deserve it quite as much as  _ me.” _

Her finger curled around the trigger, and Tony didn’t think, he didn’t deliberate, he just  _ dived.  _ The gun went off exactly where his head had been, and Tony rolled, barely noticing that he’d missed it by a hair’s breadth, barely caring that he’d been an inch from death. The only thing that mattered was that he  _ got to Peter. _

He stumbled to his feet, dimly noticing that Veronica was raising the gun again, but that wasn’t important, she was nothing but an obstacle - with all his might, Tony threw himself at her, knocking her to the ground, and the gun rolled from her hand and landed on the dirt beside her. She struggled, but Tony was relentless, the thought of Peter bleeding out in that tree driving him forward more than any anger or hatred ever could - he grabbed the discarded gun beside her, turned it in his hands, and rammed the barrel down onto her head, knocking her out cold.

Breathing heavily, shaking from head to foot, Tony stood and, without hesitation, began to haul himself up the tree. It was difficult - he was by no means the agile specimen he’d once been - but the thought of Peter continued to drive him on, and he swung himself up the tree with a kind of desperate panic-

He reached the fork where Peter was, and felt his last breath leave him.

_ Please be alive, please be alive, please, please, please- _

“Peter?”

~~~

There was pressure in his abdomen, and Peter wasn’t really very happy with it. The consistent, dull ache was occasionally interrupted by a sickening spike of pain whenever the pressure increased. 

That pain was the first thing Peter was aware of. The second was the way the world was spinning beneath him - or maybe  _ he _ was spinning. It felt like he was trapped in a giant washing machine, tumbling round and round as bile rose in his throat in response to the dizziness. The bitter taste stained his mouth, and Peter was reminded of the time he’d caught a terrible stomach bug and the taste of acid reflux hadn’t left his mouth for three days, no matter how hard he’d scrubbed at his teeth. 

His head was foggy, and Peter thought that if condensation was a feeling, this would be it. The fogginess seemed to grow and stretch, spreading to his ears and solidifying into cotton wool that dulled the sounds around him.

The pressure in his abdomen mounted to a sharp point, stabbing into him and forcing him into awareness. There was no pressure anymore, but it had morphed into a terrible, throbbing pain. He let out a single, choked sob at the feeling, and it was only when he heard his own ragged cry of pain that he realised the cotton wool in his ears had lifted as well.

With the cotton wool gone, Peter was acutely aware of the muttered curses and apologies coming from somewhere above his face. Through the layers of fog in his mind, he came to the conclusion that he knew that voice.

“Mr Stark?” 

“Peter? Oh, thank God,” the man said, his voice thick with a confusing mix of panic and relief.

Peter squirmed uncomfortably. The pain in his abdomen was sending waves of a restless, jittery sensation through his entire torso - like pins and needles, but a million times worse. There was also something rough and sharp digging into his shoulder, and he really didn’t need that on top of everything else. It was true that he didn’t actually know what everything else  _ was _ , because his brain was still reeling from the after-effects of being trapped inside a washing machine, but he was lucid enough to know that when he woke up in a strange place, feeling the way he did and with Mr Stark kneeling over him, something not so great was afoot.

“Reckon you could open your eyes for me, Pete?” Mr Stark said, and his words flew in one of Peter’s ears, bounced around inside his skull just long enough to incite a raging headache, and then flew right out the other. “C’mon, Peter, you can’t clock out just yet. I need your eyes open, kid,  _ please _ .”

Maybe it was the raw desperation in Mr Stark’s voice, or the fact that the man had just said please for probably the first time in his life, but Peter thought it might be a good idea to open his eyes, if only for the sake of Mr Stark and his old man heart.

It took no small amount of effort, because Peter still felt like he’d been run over by an overly-ambitious tractor, but he eventually blinked his eyes open and was met with Mr Stark’s haggard face hovering over his own. The man looked a mess; the wrinkles in his skin that Peter always teased him about seemed to run deeper than usual in the shadows cast by the grey light filtering through the trees, and his hair fell in sweaty, tangled strands across his forehead.

Nevertheless, the man’s face cracked into a smile at the sight of Peter, eyes open and mildly coherent. “There he is. Shit, kid, are you trying to give me a heart attack?”   
Peter forced his face into a smile, even though his muscles felt like half-cooked two-minute noodles. “Maybe?”   
Mr Stark rolled his eyes. “You know how freaky it is to wake up to an empty tent? And then you made me follow some sort of fucked up Hansel and Gretel trail, except instead of nice little breadcrumbs it’s  _ droplets of fucking blood _ , and you know what was at the end of the rainbow? Not a pot of fucking gold, I’ll tell you that much. No, it was you, lying in a tree and covered in your own blood. What the shit, Peter. Can we not have a normal camping trip? Is that too much to ask?”

During Mr Stark’s rant, Peter’s attention had wandered. He was in a tree, apparently, and he guessed that explained the rough texture beneath his back. Last night was coming back to him, though he wished it wouldn’t. Peter had never been hungover before, but he was sure it would feel like this - his memories scattered like a stack of paper left outside in a hurricane and his head throbbing like the bass of a really good song, except with a lot less epic beat drops and a lot more unwanted pain. 

On the plus side, at least he knew how he’d ended up in a tree… and why there was a throbbing pain in his abdomen. Speaking of that juicy little tidbit, Peter should probably let Mr Stark know about that.

“ _ Knife _ !” Peter shot up from his reclining position, startling Mr Stark and causing his wound to flare painfully. “Gaston… he stabbed me, Mr Stark,” Peter wailed, and the world was spinning again, but this time his eyes were open and it was  _ so  _ much worse. 

“Yeah, kid, yeah. You just lie back down for now, okay?” the man said, and if Peter wasn’t seriously low on blood levels, he’d say Mr Stark thought he was crazy. But then again, maybe he was. Blood loss could do wild things to people, of this Peter was certain.

He was no stranger to stab wounds, or gunshot wounds, or just wounds in general. It might have had something to do with the fact that he frequently swung around New York City and fought bad guys whose primary weapon of choice was either a knife or a gun, or maybe a spicy mix of both if they were feeling ambitious. 

Peter’s familiarity with the aforementioned weapons, and the subsequent wounds they created, meant he was also very familiar with blood loss and its symptoms. Call him Doctor Parker, because he had just diagnosed himself with Acute Loss of Life Juice Syndrome.

“You gotta watch out for the Tarzan dudes, Mr Stark. You gotta.” Despite the pain he was in, Peter was determined to warn Mr Stark of the danger that they were probably still facing - he was so selfless like that. If Mr Stark had been able to find him, that meant the Tarzan-wannabes could too. In fact, it was a miracle Mr Stark hadn’t come across them already. 

“Yeah, Pete, I’m watching. Just lie still, alright? I need to keep pressure on this.” At his mentor’s words, Peter’s wound gave another sharp pulse and he cried out despite himself. Mr Stark whispered apologies, but Peter’s vision was clouding over again and he couldn’t really bring himself to focus on whatever the other man was doing. “No! Peter, eyes open, kid. Look at me,  _ stay awake _ .”

There was a rough hand gripping Peter’s chin, and the force of the fingertips against his skin was edging on uncomfortable, but he could hear the desperation in Mr Stark’s voice. “Don’ w’rry, Mr S’ark, I got it. Eyes open,” Peter slurred, trying his best to comfort the man. The muttered curse that followed his words made Peter think he hadn’t done a very good job of it. 

_ Typical, you can’t do anything right. _

To his dismay, Peter felt tears well in his eyes. 

_ Come on, get it together, Parker. Now is not the time to break down like a blubbering baby.  _

But he couldn’t help it. He was exhausted, he was in pain, he was terrified, and there was  _ still _ something sharp digging into his shoulder. 

“Kid,” came Mr Stark’s voice, soft and pitying.

Peter shut his eyes, trying to block the man out. His cheeks were burning against the crisp forest air, and there was something warm and wet trailing its way down his cheeks that, given his current situation, could either be blood or tears. He held his breath against the swelling tide of emotion that was thick and choking as it rose up his throat. He could  _ not _ cry in front of Mr Stark. That man was his hero, and Peter had been working his butt off for the past few months trying to prove to him that he was more than some crazy kid that needed babysitting. Breaking down into a sobbing heap in front of the man was definitely not the best way to go about that. Mr Stark was notoriously uncomfortable with emotions, and Peter was already forcing the man to deal with a stab wound - he didn’t need a hormonal teenager on top of all of that.

A hand in his hair interrupted Peter’s musings. It was strong, but gentle, and teased the knots out of his brown strands with a sort of hesitant comfort that Peter recognised from the first time he’d leaned against Mr Stark while they were watching a movie. 

“It’s alright, kid. I know it hurts, I know, but we’ll get out of here soon. Pepper will use that crazy sixth sense she has for whenever I get myself into another shenanigan, and she’ll hunt us down herself if she has to. We’ll get you back to the Compound, fix you up, make you all better, and once Doctor Cho thinks you’re healthy enough we can have a nice cup of hot chocolate and a movie night, what do you say? No camping ever again,  _ that’s _ a promise,” Mr Stark soothed, and Peter felt himself relaxing just a bit.

“I do like hot chocolate,” he laughed, though it came out more like a wet chuckle than anything else, and Peter winced at how forced it sounded. 

“I know you do, kid. Your obsession with it is almost unhealthy, as is the amount of powder you put in.”

“At least I don’ put a single tabl’spoonful in, Mr S’ark.  _ That’s _ just crim’nal.”

Slowly, they eased into their usual banter, and Peter could feel himself relaxing as he fell into the familiar pattern of mercilessly bullying Mr Stark. Despite the fact that the blood loss was making his head foggy and his tongue sit thick and heavy in his mouth, he managed to get off some real zingers that made the man chuckle even with the seriousness of the situation splayed out before him in the form of the still-growing red stain in Peter’s T-shirt. 

Mr Stark had been applying pressure to the wound for the past… however long it had been since the man discovered him unconscious in a tree, but the bleeding had only slowed marginally. Peter tried to ignore the growing panic that showed itself in the way his mentor clenched his jaw, in the stiff way he held his shoulders. 

Watching the man’s frenzied attempts to stem the bleeding only led to the panic finding a place somewhere deep in the pit of Peter’s stomach, fixing itself there like a leech and sucking his breath from him. Instead, he focused on the canopy of trees above him. Really, it was quite pretty. If he weren’t seriously lacking in the blood department right now, he’d definitely be obsessing over it in some way. As it was, he could only summon the energy to track the movements of the various forest animals with his eyes. 

A bird flitted across a gap in the trees, and a shadow was briefly cast across Peter’s face. He relished in the break from the sun, even if it was only momentary. It had been streaming in through the leaves since he woke up, and by now had heated his face to an almost uncomfortable level. Not to mention, it was shining directly into one of his eyes. 

He glanced away from the sky for a second, unable to bear looking at the sun for a moment longer. It was through sheer luck and a splash of good timing that he saw it - the flicker of movement behind a bush. Peter’s breath stuttered, and Mr Stark paused in his ministrations for a moment to look up at him.

“What is it, kid?”   
Peter couldn’t be sure. He thought he’d seen… but no. It must have been a trick of the light, or a random animal. His mind was not functioning at its highest capacity; he couldn’t trust it not to make him hallucinate, or something. Yeah, that was it. He’d just been hallucinating. 

“Uh, n-nothing, Mr Stark. Jus’ a trick of the light or somethin’,” Peter muttered, his mouth and throat painfully dry. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a sip of water, and he could really use some right about now. 

Despite the fact that he’d brushed the strange movement off, Peter’s eyes remained fixed on the spot he’d seen it…just in case. 

Suddenly, the back of his neck prickled with a familiar, but entirely unwelcome, sensation. It was a continuous wave of awareness running up and down, screaming at him to run but not telling him  _ where _ the danger was or  _ what _ it was. Sometimes, Peter hated his spider sense and the inconveniences that its vagueness brought about. It was easy enough to follow its simple directions -  _ Duck! Jump! Dodge! - _ in a fight, but now he had no clue what he was supposed to be running from, and it was setting him on edge.

“Scratch that, Mr S’ark, there’s defin’ly something.”

Just as the words left his mouth, he caught a glimpse of movement in the shadows cast by the overhead leaves. This time, there was no mistaking what he’d seen; a distinctly human-shaped figure, crouched low and dressed in familiar, rugged survivalist gear. He listened intently, and with the help of his enhanced hearing, could just make out the shuffling of feet in the undergrowth and what sounded like a heated, half-whispered argument.

“This wasn’t the plan! The kid isn’t supposed to be here, and  _ Stark _ is the one that’s supposed to be unconscious on the ground, not the boss-lady!”

Peter frowned at that. Who was the boss-lady? Why was she unconscious on the ground? And why were they calling him a _ kid?  _ He was a teenager! Curse his boyish features. The argument continued, and Peter tuned back in.

“I’m not killing some kid, though Nutso over there already had a good go of it. I agreed to ending Tony Stark, that’s  _ it _ . She made it sound so much simpler than this.”

“Shut it. We know the plan - let’s stick to it. The kid is an unfortunate collateral damage, but not a risk we can afford to take. If he makes it out of here alive he’ll go blabbing to everyone he knows, and we can’t have that.” 

Peter knew that voice… 

“Fine, you’re right.”   
“I  _ know  _ I’m right. Everyone, into position - we have the element of surprise and we don’t want to waste it. On my signal, alright?”

Well, that was  _ Peter’s _ signal to shout, “ _ Go! _ Mr Stark we gotta run!”

Mr Stark, who had been watching Peter intently for the past few minutes while he eavesdropped, startled at the sudden yell, nearly falling out of the tree. Luckily, years of being an alien-fighting, bad guy-blasting superhero had afforded him fairly good reflexes, and he jumped down to the ground, the landing only slightly unbalanced. Within the next moment, he was helping Peter down, and Peter just had time to catch a glimpse of a woman lying on the ground before the Tarzan-wannabes burst through the trees. At least that answered one of his questions, though Mr Stark wasn’t about to let him stop and investigate.

The man slung Peter’s arm over his shoulder and took off running. The forest was flashing by and Peter stumbled ungracefully through the thick undergrowth, one hand pressed against his stab-wound in a futile attempt to alleviate some of the pain. He was surprised to feel the knife still lodged firmly in there, though he supposed it was one of the only things keeping him alive at this point. 

Mr Stark was practically dragging him now, because Peter’s legs were far too weak and shaky for him to support himself. Unfortunately, his mentor was a long way from the limber young man of his early years, and bodily heaving a teenager through the woods was starting to take its toll on him.

The Tarzan-wannabes, not bagged down by injured companions or old age, were gaining fast. They crashed through the trees behind them, so close Peter could hear each panting breath they took. Mr Stark’s chest was heaving, and Peter was reminded of the fact that the man had heart problems. Another wave of crushing guilt swept through him, though it was quickly dampened by the zinging ripple of electricity that was his spider-sense, which had been roaring in the back of his mind since he first detected the presence of the Tarzan-wannabes. 

Mr Stark banked right suddenly, and the movement twisted Peter’s wound painfully. He cried out, and heard Gaston cackle wickedly behind him. That guy was crazy, which was a real shame because he had a magnificent ponytail. 

The thundering of feet behind them reached a climax, and the Tarzan-wannabes were so close now that Peter could  _ feel _ their heaving intakes of breath on the back of his neck. A hand closed around his arm and he was yanked from Mr Stark’s grasp. He toppled to the ground, and used his momentum to pull his arm free and roll into a standing position in one, swift movement. Adrenaline was coursing its way through his veins now, and it made his hands tremble violently, but gave him enough strength to hold himself up. 

He whipped around and his eyes sought out Mr Stark of their own accord. The man had given an alarmed cry when Peter was wrenched from his arms, and had turned around with his fists already swinging towards one of the Tarzan-wannabes. Peter returned to his side because he thought the man would like to know that he was not, in fact, dead just yet. Immediately, he had to dodge a barrage of punches aimed at his face. These guys did not muck around.

Suddenly, his spider-sense spiked, and he ducked on instinct. A knife whizzed through the air and embedded itself in the tree behind him. Uh-oh - Peter knew what the appearance of knives meant. 

“H-hey, Gaston,” Peter stuttered cheerfully, hoping his casual tone was enough to hide his fear-induced stutter and the way he’d tripped over a root in his haste to stand back up. “I have to admit, it’s not that great to see you again.” Peter’s wound throbbed as if in agreement. He did  _ not _ want another one of those.

Gaston scowled. “You took my favourite knife.”

Peter gaped at him. Was he serious? “Dude, you threw it  _ into _ me! This is on you,” he said, gesturing to the stab wound in his torso. Gaston cocked his head, a manic look on his face, and Peter wondered if he should change the guy’s name to  _ Crazy _ Gaston. 

Just as Peter was starting to fear for his wellbeing, Mr Stark popped up out of nowhere and clocked Crazy Gaston on the head with a sizable rock. Crazy Gaston fell to the ground, a heap of skinny limbs (which Peter found ironic, due to the rather muscular figure of his fictional counterpart) and sadism. 

“C’mon kid, we need to get out of here,” Mr Stark yelled, and Peter noticed he’d somehow procured a gun - probably stole it off one of the Tarzan-wannabes. Peter glanced behind him and noticed that while he’d been flailing around on the ground and chatting it up with Crazy Gaston, Mr Stark had been fighting smart. He’d taken down all the quick, agile guys, leaving only beefy dudes like Himbo and Tree-Guy (who was sporting a sizable lump on his noggin) left. Due to their robust frames, they would hopefully find it more difficult to navigate the tightly-packed trees and bushes around them. 

Without warning, Mr Stark booked it in a random direction, and Peter followed, albeit at a slower pace. His wound was really starting to make itself known and the adrenaline in his blood was receding, leaving his legs feeling hollow and shaky. He was not at his best, and it showed in each of his quivering steps, but he was still able to outpace the beefy guys chasing after them.

He could see Mr Stark ahead of him, and the man seemed to be heading for a dark hole in the face of the mountain before them. Peter wasn’t so sure running into a cave was such a great idea. What if it was a dead end and they were cornered by a bunch of dudes that, in all honesty, looked like they could snap Peter like a stale cracker? What if there were bats in the cave? He shuddered - bats were gross, and there was always a chance they were vampires in disguise. He’d  _ seen _ Hotel Transylvannia, he was no idiot. But, if Mr Stark thought taking shelter in the cave was a good idea, then Peter wasn’t going to argue.

He sprinted on, entering the shelter of the cave and letting out a panting breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. The air was moist and almost seemed like a tangible thing he could feel in his throat as he swallowed. He chanced a glance backwards, and stumbled in shock as he saw that the beefy guys had stopped at the mouth of the cave. Were they some sort of reverse vampires that couldn’t go into the shadows? 

But no, Himbo was laughing - cackling, actually - as he pointed to something on the roof of the cave. 

_ Was it a bat? It better not be a fucking bat. _

It was not a bat. It was something much, much worse. Peter was distantly aware of the fact that Mr Stark had stopped running because he could no longer hear the man’s footsteps echoing off the walls - he was probably stopping to watch in horror, just as Peter was, as Himbo raised his gun at the ceiling and fired a round into the rock. The rock, which had a spider-web of cracks running through it, began to fall down to the ground with an almighty series of crashes as Mr Stark screamed at him to  _ run _ . 

Dust rose into the air, sneaking into Peter’s airways, sending him into a coughing fit that sparked pain in his stab wound so violent he fell to the ground, unable to keep himself upright. The cascade of rocks came ever closer, and Peter was very much prepared to meet his end in this cave version of Hotel Transylvania, with his last thought a surprised commentary on how Himbo was, ironically, quite smart. Peter had  _ not _ judged that man’s character very accurately. Apparently, however, the cruel temptress of fate did not have death in store for him just yet, or maybe it was just the iron will of one Tony Stark. 

A hand closed around his arm for the second time that day, except instead of yanking him from safety like last time, it pulled him towards it. And he almost made it, too. Just a foot more and he’d have made it to the end of the tunnel where the rock was more stable and therefore not crashing down around them. 

Just a foot more and he wouldn’t have felt it as his leg was trapped beneath a chunk of falling rock, effectively pinning him to the ground. 

Just a foot more and an inconveniently timed rock wouldn’t have smashed over his head. 

Just a foot more and he wouldn’t have been sent spiraling into darkness as rocks rained from above, cascading over him and blocking out Mr Stark’s cry of panic as Peter was pulled from his grasp yet again. 

Just a foot more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, we did pull the mini cliffhanger twice in a row. Sorry about that.  
> Hope you guys liked this one. We are well and truly out of the fluff zone now, so if you're only here for that, proceed with caution.  
> For the rest of you fellow whump lovers, get ready... ;)


	5. Sleeping Beauty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo friends. We're back at it with another chapter, and we know y'all are really keen for this one so we'll end this note here.

Everything was dark.

Everything was entirely, totally, terrifyingly dark, and for a long time, he let himself drift within it. Just him and the darkness. Half-floating, half-drowning.

He supposed that at some point, he must have shifted into some degree of self-awareness, because the longer he drifted through the darkness, the harder it became to believe what he’d initially thought - that the chasm of black was endless, encapsulating. There was something beyond the dark, of that Tony was sure, and the details trickled back in tantalising pieces, not quite whole enough to make him remember, but with a distinct edge that shot chills of unease down his spine. Dark - it had been daytime before, hadn’t it? - something had caused the darkness - something had  _ forced  _ it-

And then the pieces flew into place, and Tony felt an overwhelming rush of panic that manifested itself in a single, choked word. “Peter?”

He was met with nothing but chilling silence, his call fading into the darkness.

With the regaining of his memory, however, seemed to come the return of full lucidity, and Tony jerked as a flood of hyper-sensation returned to him, as though it were making up for the precious minutes he had lost drifting half-conscious in the darkness. He was lying, stiff and sore, on what felt like rough, hard rock. Tony raised both hands to his head, guessing that the cause of his initial disorientation was probably the result of hitting his head on said rock, and felt his suspicions confirmed when his fingers came into contact with a small tender spot on his right temple.

_ What are you doing, Stark? Feel better, now that you’ve checked for bruises? Where the fuck is the kid? _

It was like the first wave of panic hadn’t even registered, like he’d been so suddenly taken aback by such overwhelming  _ comprehension  _ that it had, ironically, faded only milliseconds after. But he was fully conscious now, and the memory of what had happened was far from fragmented. They’d been running from Veronica’s cronies - Peter had been half stabbed to death - Tony, like an  _ idiot,  _ had led them into this stupid cave, hoping for… what? Sanctuary? Sudden invincibility? Obviously, that hadn’t turned out so great. As a reward for his tempting of fate, one of the cronies had made it collapse -

“Peter?” Tony called again, his voice returning in full vigour. He sat up, his stiff muscles screaming in protest, and peered into the suffocating blackness.

It was no good. He could barely see two feet in front of him.

Abandoning the reliance on his vision, Tony turned to his ears instead, straining desperately to hear something,  _ anything.  _ For several long seconds, there was nothing but terrifying silence — and then, as though he’d suddenly become attuned to smaller noises, he became aware of faint breathing, so quiet that it was almost unintelligible.

Suddenly seized with urgency, Tony staggered to his feet and blindly followed the noise, trying to move as quietly as possible so that it wouldn’t disappear entirely. He had stumbled no more than a handful of uncouth paces before he noticed that the darkness around him had started to lighten, imperceptibly at first, but now his surroundings were a dusty brown rather than an unyielding black. His eyes fell upon what looked like a small shaft of light, filtering down from a minuscule crevice in the collapsed rock above his head. Aware of what he was about to find but terrified nonetheless, Tony cast his eyes downwards and saw, illuminated in the musty light from the tiny opening- 

_ “Peter,”  _ Tony said again, his voice swaying between relief and undiluted panic as he dropped to his hands and knees and skidded over to the kid. Only Peter’s upper body was visible from the dim light, and Tony’s eyes travelled from the frightening blood stain surrounding the knife to his head — and where, he quickly realised, a pile of small rocks was covering where his  _ face should be. _

His breath stuck somewhere in his throat, his mouth paper dry, Tony reached out and cleared the stones and pebbles off Peter, aware that his clumsy application of force was probably just giving the kid more bruises, but unable to slow himself down. His own small egg-shaped lump was laughable in comparison to the myriad of bruises and dried blood that dotted Peter’s forehead; in the places where the kid’s skin wasn’t marred by purplish stains, his face was pale and translucent, shining with sweat. He looked almost ghost-like, with his sweaty brown curls ringing his head in some sort of twisted halo, or perhaps a crown of thorns. Distantly, Tony thought that this was like some fucked-up version of  _ Sleeping Beauty.  _ Swap sleeping for near-death, and beauty for blood and bruises — yeah, that sounded just about right.

_ Come on, Stark, now is not the time for fairy tales. _

A second quick assessment of the state of Peter’s head had Tony deciding to ignore them for now. None of them looked terribly serious, and he had two much more pressing matters practically screaming in his face: the ugly knife in Peter’s stomach, and the fact that he  _ wasn’t conscious. _

“Peter,” Tony said again, this time almost  _ pleading,  _ and he grabbed the kid’s shoulders and started shaking them, all attempts at gentleness forgotten in the wake of Peter’s limp form, his pale face. Even his breathing scared Tony — it was raspy, tinny, like it, too, was holding onto life by a thread. 

“C’mon, Pete,” Tony begged. “You gotta wake up for me. Please, kid.”

Nothing. He may as well have been talking to the rocks for all the response he got.

Now feeling shamelessly desperate, Tony grabbed Peter’s face and shook that, too, hating that he had to do this, but hoping against hope that it would at least reap some results. But Peter didn’t move, and no matter how desperately Tony said his name, or pleaded with him to wake up, those eyes remained determinedly, horrifyingly closed.

Tony was now on the verge of throwing up as the gravity of his situation sank in. He was trapped in a cave by presumably immovable rock, with nothing but a shaft of murky light to guide him and no supplies bar the clothes on his back. He had no food, water or, most importantly, medical supplies, and an unconscious boy lay beside him, the very boy that he’d so carelessly assured May would be returning, safe and happy and very much alive, to her apartment in two weeks’ time. If the kid died on Tony, what the hell was he supposed to tell her? And — more importantly, he realised — what the fuck was he supposed to tell  _ himself? _

He couldn’t ignore it any longer. Pepper had been right, telling him those intuitive words what felt like a lifetime ago, when all he’d had to worry about were Peter’s nightmares:  _ You seem to really care about him. _

He did. He cared a hell of a lot about the kid, and it was almost scary to admit it to himself, because to acknowledge this was also to acknowledge the absolute, total, gut-wrenching  _ agony  _ that he would feel if Peter died. It would be all his fault. He would have to live with that for the  _ rest of his fucking life— _

“Peter,” Tony said again, a choked sob escaping him as he fruitlessly shook the kid’s shoulders again. “Pete, kid,  _ please.  _ Don’t die.  _ Please. I need you.” _

It wasn’t working, and Tony could have screamed with desperate frustration if not for the lump of terror steadily building in his throat. Abandoning his futile attempts at waking Peter, Tony instead turned his attention to the wound on Peter’s stomach, still leaking blood around the knife.

_ Get it together, Tony. Think. He’s not dead yet. _

It took a Herculean effort to temporarily shove the stifling, mind-shattering panic aside, and to gather his thoughts into something at least mildly resembling rationality. Peter was unconscious, Tony knew that much, and the longer he sat here, pleading uselessly, the less chance the kid had of ever waking up again. The only way to save Peter was to stop the seemingly endless bleeding from the kid’s stomach.

It had quite evidently been aggravated from their adrenaline-fuelled sprint through the forest, because Tony could see dried blood stains around the kid’s T-shirt where excessive amounts of blood had probably spurted out in a grotesque display worthy of a horror-movie. Currently, the wound was leaking slowly but surely, and Tony would have been relieved that it wasn’t aggressively spurting blood if he wasn’t already acutely aware of how much blood Peter had already lost. He stared down at the knife still jutting tauntingly out of the kid’s stomach, and the impossible question stared right back at him, the metal blade glinting almost teasingly at him.

Tony was no medical expert, but he wasn’t an idiot, either. He knew the knife had already been in Peter’s stomach for an extended amount of time, and he knew that if left in for much longer, the skin surrounding it would start to seal itself around the knife in a desperate attempt to close its own wound. Combine that bodily process with Peter’s already enhanced-healing, and Tony was sure that soon enough, it would be impossible to remove the knife from Peter’s stomach without seriously hurting the kid. But the persistent problem remained —  _ the knife was the only thing keeping Peter alive. _

If he took it out, who knew how much blood would start spurting? Tony could just imagine the kind of damage that the blade could conceal; severed arteries, organ damage, God knew what else. Peter could be dead within minutes _.  _ He’d be kneeling next to a corpse that he had, for all intents and purposes, killed. Taking the knife out was akin to manslaughter.

It was a testament to the desperation of his situation, and the new low of barely-concealed panic that he’d reached, that Tony actually considered, for a moment, cauterisation. He’d seen the practice on countless TV shows; his former self had sat there, drowning in naivety and ignorance, mildly disgusted but mostly grossly engaged as hardened survivalists saved their faithful sidekicks from bleeding out with a red-hot shard of metal. Tony still had the gun he’d snatched from one of Veronica’s cronies — he could remove the knife, shoot the gun right here in the cave, and press the burning-hot barrel to Peter’s open wound…

But even as he considered the idea, casting aside all feelings of burning repulsion, he still was hesitant. Even under the assumption that he’d be able to bring himself to do —  _ that  _ — to Peter, which he severely doubted, there were still so many variables, about a hundred ways for things to go wrong. What if the gun didn’t get hot enough to close the wound, and all he succeeded in doing was causing Peter a great deal more pain? What if Peter’s wound was so extensive, or had already lost so much blood, that when he removed the knife, the kid died before he could even cauterise the gash? What if the bullet from his gun ricocheted off the invisible walls in this dark cave and hit him or Peter?

No, Tony decided, feeling a wave of roiling nausea that he’d even accommodated the idea for more than a second. There were too many opportunities for everything to go to shit, and if there was one thing Tony had learnt, it was that if the  _ opportunity  _ existed, the shit usually followed. He hadn’t believed in good luck since his parents had died in that not-so-accidental car crash. And if he was being honest with himself, the thought of  _ burning the kid’s skin closed  _ made him want to vomit with self-repulsion.

There was nothing for it, then. It was too risky to pull the knife out, and since he was now safely out of the realm of insanity (A.K.A. considering cauterisation), the only option left was to leave it in. It would help stop most of the bleeding, in any case, and Tony was almost certain that Helen would be able to surgically remove it when they got back to the Compound.

_ If  _ they got back to the Compound.

Gritting his teeth, Tony decided the only thing left to do was to try and stop what blood  _ was  _ leaking out as best as he could. Since he’d had the careless oversight to forget to bring a first aid kit when he went in search of Peter — which involved following a literal  _ trail of blood —  _ he supposed he’d have to use his own clothes as a bandage, the way they did it in the movies.

It turned out to be a lot harder than the movies portrayed it. Ripping his shirt cleanly was no mean feat, and Tony ended up pulling strands off in clumsy clumps, half-frayed at the edges and peeling off in long strands from the main material. With these unconventional makeshift-bandages, he tried as best he could to apply some sort of pressure to the wound, tying the pieces of fabric together in a long chain and then securing them tightly around the base of the knife. The result was definitely not the life-saving tourniquet he’d envisioned, but there was no longer visible blood seeping from Peter’s wound, which under current circumstances, Tony counted as a definite win.

Tony sat back on his heels, wiping sweat off his face and considering his next move with a vague sort of panic, when his attention was caught by a very faint, very tremulous, but distinctly audible groan of pain.

He whipped his head around, heart racing as he stared at Peter, hardly daring to believe it. “Kid?”

There was a beat in which Tony couldn’t breathe. And then the noise sounded again, and it was stronger, this time, more defined. Peter’s eyelids fluttered once. Twice. Three times.

Tony was torn between the urge to cry again or to grab Peter in his arms and wrap him up in one of the most desperate, relieved hugs of all time. He managed to refrain from both options, instead swallowing hard and speaking once again. “Kid? Peter? It’s me. It’s Tony.”

Peter blinked dazedly, his pale, sweaty face staring unseeingly up at the air above him. Tony shuffled closer so that his face was half-illuminated by the dim shaft of light, thinking as he did so that the discomfort of having his wound poked and prodded at must have, once again, awoken Peter. Tony would have felt bad if he wasn’t so relieved.

“Mr S’ark?” Peter mumbled incoherently, the words tumbling out like half-stirred mush. Tony’s feeling of intense relief, though overwhelming only seconds ago, proved to be fleeting as he stared down at Peter’s half-lucid, pain-ridden face. The kid was at least somewhat conscious now, it was true, but his voice was so weak, his movements so faint, that Tony failed to feel anything but worry and concern.

“Yeah, kid,” he croaked. “It’s me.”

Peter blinked again, his gaze moving from Tony’s face, to the darkness everywhere else, and then back to Tony’s face.

“Where…” he mumbled. “Where are we?”

Tony swallowed, unable to answer for several belated seconds.

_ We’re stuck in a cave that I led us into, kid, and we’re probably going to die here. Because I also forgot to get supplies when I left. So yeah, you can blame the supposed-genius for this one. _

“Um,” he said, entirely aware that he sounded pathetic, but unable to think of anything eloquent to say.

Peter, however, seemed to be gaining awareness now; his eyes looked less glassy, his face less slack. He looked around at the endless darkness again, and a small hint of fear sparked in those eyes that had finally opened.

“Cave,” he remembered slowly. “We’re...we’re in a cave, aren’ we?”

Tony nodded miserably, the self-repulsion burning harder than ever. “I’m sorry, kid, I didn’t know the loony guy was gonna shoot it down—”

“I don’ like caves,” Peter interrupted, and there was a distinct edge to his words now, something that ran deeper than the slurred syllables and the half-deliriousness. The fear in his eyes rapidly grew, extending outwards to spread across his features.

“Don’ like them,” Peter repeated, sounding almost desperate. “Hate ‘em, Mr S’ark.”

“I know, kid,” Tony said, the burning feeling now spreading across his chest like wildfire. “I know, but just try and stay calm for me, okay? We’ll get out of here soon, I promise, we’ll get out—”

But he broke off abruptly, unable to continue with the blatant lies, not when Peter’s face showed nothing but pure, unadulterated terror. The kid was breathing fast, too fast, and Tony knew that sound — he’d experienced it before, knew it like the back of his hand —

“C’mon, Pete,” Tony said desperately, because Peter  _ could not  _ have a panic attack, not here, not now, not when he was already on the brink of dying from blood loss. “Take deep breaths for me, kid. In, out, like this.”

He took several deep, exaggerated breaths, making each movement deliberate, trying to ignore the fact that he felt on the brink of a panic attack himself.

“That’s it, kid,” Tony encouraged, as Peter struggled to copy his movements. “Look, I know this is a shitty situation—”  _ yeah, no shit, Sherlock —  _ “but I need you to keep breathing for me, yeah? Nice and slow, like that.”

Peter continued to take deep, shaky breaths. His muscles were taut and tense, and the terror on his face remained, a raw, plain reminder of the damage Tony has caused. 

“It’ll be okay,” Tony blundered on, barely aware of what he was saying at that point, just trying to keep Peter distracted,  _ keep him alive.  _ “Just look around you at all that darkness, and pretend we’re somewhere else. We could be anywhere, right? We can barely see. We could be back at the Compound, just finished with one of those  _ Star Wars  _ movies you drool over...we could be in the tent, and it’s just a really cloudy night. For all we know, we could be at Disneyland, kid, on one of those roller coaster rides that go all dark to scare the faint-hearted. I’d probably be about to hurl, but you’d be having the time of your life.”

Peter let out a choked noise that sounded like a strange mix between a laugh and a sob. He shuddered slightly, the movement shooting down his tense muscles and aggravating his poorly-bandaged wound.

“I really...really don’t like this, Mr S’ark.”

“I know, kid,” Tony whispered softly. “I know. But I’ll get us out of here, I promise. Just think of this as another one of my stupid ideas. I wanted to go hiking, and we wound up here.”

“You hate hikin’,” Peter slurred, a hint of his old infectious energy seeping into his words.

“Fine, okay, you got me,” Tony rambled on, as though this was perfectly normal, just another one of their many joking conversations. “Maybe this can be one of your stupid ideas, then. You  _ did _ want to go swimming in sub-zero waters, so I guess it’s not that out of character.”

Peter let out another choked noise, and this time it was definitely laughter, but the pain that it obviously invoked within him distorted and warped the sound, making it grate harshly against Tony’s ears. Tony stared down at the kid, at his blood-stained torso and pale, strained, half-terrified face, and found that he couldn’t hold back the parasitic thoughts any longer.

“Look at me,” he muttered, trying and failing to sound casual, light-hearted. “Taking you on this trip, thinking it’ll make you feel better. Thinking it’ll get rid of your nightmares, when all it’s going to do is probably give you more.”

Peter didn’t speak for a moment, and Tony was unsure whether he’d scared the kid into silence, or whether Peter simply needed a few extra moments to process everything in his delirious state. The latter proved to be true when Peter eventually slurred, “Tha’...tha’s why you took me campin’?”

Tony screwed up his face against the shame of it all. He couldn’t believe he had somehow managed to mess up a camping trip. A fucking  _ camping trip,  _ the epitome of harmles family-bonding activities.

“Yeah,” he said heavily. “It was Pepper’s idea. She thought it might take your mind off things, get you feeling better.”

“But how… how did y’know I was havin’ nightmares?” Peter asked, a definite note of confusion underneath the pain in his voice.

“Kid, I  _ woke you up from one,”  _ Tony replied, feeling slightly incredulous despite himself.

“Only one, though.”

“Maybe,” Tony conceded, “but it was obvious you were having them pretty regularly. You looked tired all the time, and I heard you waking up in the night.”

Peter groaned, closing his eyes in what Tony could only interpret as shame. “It’s so—so s’upid, anyway,” he mumbled, sounding like he hated himself, and Tony wanted to throw something at hearing that sound in  _ Peter’s  _ voice.

“Hey, kid, don’t say that,” he said, with as much authority as he could muster. “It’s not stupid, alright? Nightmares are a normal part of what we do, your body’s way of processing the bad stuff you experience.  _ I  _ used to get nightmares half the time. Still do, actually.”

“Bu’ I bet yours were actually...about bad stuff,” Peter mumbled again. “ _ Mine  _ are — they’re — I —” He broke off, looking torn between continuing and changing the subject, all the while that sense of half-coherence plaguing his features.

“Whatever they are, Pete,” Tony said quietly, “it’s not something to be ashamed of.”

“Oh yeah?” Peter choked out. “What if y’got nigh’mares about being trapped under a  _ rock,  _ Mr S’ark? Would you...would you still say that then?”

Tony felt something fragile within him break at those words.

“Kid, I just told you,” he said hoarsely. “This is  _ all my fault.  _ I’m the dumbass who led us into this godforsaken cave while we were being chased by those goons. Clever idea, I told myself. They’ll never get us in here. Little did my supposedly-smart brain realise, all it would take was a well-placed gunshot for them to—” He broke off, his eyes burning too much to continue, and tried again. “Look, kid, if you get nightmares from this, I am not going to judge you. In fact, I’d be more concerned if you  _ didn’t  _ get them.”

“No, Mr S’ark,” Peter said, every word sounding forced. “Y’don’t get it. I — I  _ already  _ get bad dreams about this.”

For a brief moment, Tony was totally nonplussed. “What do you mean, kiddo?”

“Just wha’ I said,” Peter went on, his voice barely above a whisper, as though he was revealing his deepest, darkest secret. “I already get them. From when I wen’ after the Vulture, even though you told me not to. I followed him, an’ — he tried to get me on his side, but I said no — so we got into a fight, an’ he — he made the build’ng — it fell. On me.”

Tony felt a wave of burning anger wash over him. “That  _ bastard.” _

“I go’ out,” Peter went on, “but — it — I still remember it, Mr S’ark. Think I must be claustrophobic, or somethin’,” he added, trying to play the whole thing off as a joke, but the haunted, ghostly look in his eyes betrayed him.

Tony suddenly felt violently sick. The kid had been  _ buried alive.  _ A whole fucking building had collapsed on top of him, and Tony hadn’t been there. Hadn’t even known about it until now. All he’d done at the time was yell at the kid to stay out of things that didn’t concern him and shoved him on his way, with not so much as a second thought about his safety—

_ And now he’s trapped in a cave. A fucking cave that you led him into. Jeez, way to bring back the bad memories, you idiot. _

“Oh, my god,” Tony said finally. “Jesus, Peter, I — I am  _ so sorry.”  _ He broke off, wanting to say a million things at once, yet unable, somehow, to voice any of them. 

_ I’m sorry I took you on this trip. I’m sorry I let this happen to you. I’m sorry I brought you in here— _

“Wha’ are you sorry for?” Peter slurred. “S’not your fault. It’s me. I’m the loser who’s scared of some rocks.” 

“And I’m the total idiot who got us stuck in this cave,” Tony returned. “Listen, Peter, if you call this fear stupid one more time, I might just have to yell at you, alright? You went through something traumatic, something you were probably scared of to begin with. It’s only natural that you get bad dreams about it. I only wish I’d known about this earlier, so we could — so we —” Once again, he couldn’t finish, because he knew full well that his words were entirely hypocritical. Peter had  _ tried  _ to tell him, at the time, about the threat the Vulture posed, and he’d brushed him off. Called him childish, sent him home. This was, once again, all Tony’s fault.

It seemed to be a specialised skill of his, fucking everything up.

He was disgusted with himself, and the feeling sat bitter and heavy in the back of his throat, a cold weight reminding him of all his past mistakes. But there wasn’t time for self-hatred. Tony glanced down at Peter again, at his pale face, his bloodstained torso. He still couldn’t see below the wound in Peter’s stomach; the shaft of light was too limited.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, deciding to temporarily shelve the matter of his overwhelming  _ idiocy  _ and instead address the much more pressing problem of Peter being close to death.

“Well,” Peter said slowly, “alright, I guess.”

“Peter,” Tony said. “Cut the bullshit and just tell me the truth. We don’t have time for heroics, kid. I know you’re in pain.”

“Well,” Peter said again, sounding as though he barely understood what he was saying, and he shifted uncomfortably. “The  _ pain _ part is debat’ble. I mean, my knife hole hurts like, a lot, but I can’t really feel my legs an’more.”

“Your — your legs?” Tony repeated, a numb feeling of foreboding settling in his stomach. “What do you mean, your  _ legs?” _

Peter looked up as though seeing him for the first time, and then swore incoherently. “Oh, righ’. I wasn’t gonna tell you.”

“Tell me  _ what?”  _ Tony hissed, fear flooding him, and before Peter could answer, he crawled down to the lower half of Peter’s body and reached out to the spot where the kid’s legs should be.

He had expected any number of horrific things. More blood, perhaps, or a broken leg.  _ Two  _ broken legs, with both the bones poking out.

He had certainly not expected to feel nothing but a solid wall of rock, entirely blocking the kid’s left leg from his touch. He had certainly not expected to come to the realisation that Peter’s leg was  _ trapped under a goddamned boulder. _

Tony turned back to Peter, holding back the urge to vomit right there on the spot.

“Peter,” he said, his voice shaking, “what the actual  _ fuck  _ is this?”

~~~

At the best of times, Peter was an average secret keeper. He’d managed to keep Spider-Man under wraps pretty well, if he did say so himself, though that may have had more to do with the unobservant and self-absorbed nature of his peers and fellow New Yorkers than anything else. MJ had told him that he and Ned discussed the topic so loudly she was surprised the whole of Midtown hadn’t heard about it by now. This was the only clue she’d given Peter that she knew about his secret identity. She had not mentioned anything about it since, and it was making him a little antsy. But he could definitely trust MJ to keep it hush hush. She was, like, secret keeper supreme.

So yeah, at peak functionality, he knew how to lock things away when it was necessary. Unfortunately for him, a stab wound and the subsequent excessive blood loss, coupled with a very squashed leg and a teenie weenie panic attack, meant that he was decidedly  _ not _ at peak functionality. His secret keeping abilities had been dealt a considerable blow, and so Peter should have known that when he resolved to keep his recently acquired pancake-leg a secret from Mr Stark, it wouldn’t last long.

As it turned out, Peter had been right, and now he was facing a very cranky looking billionaire who had just asked him “what the actual  _ fuck _ is this,” and Peter wasn’t even with-it enough to know the answer to that question. All he knew was that his leg probably now had the structural integrity of half-melted Jell-O, and that from the area emanated a screaming, throbbing pain that Peter just… wasn’t even going to deal with right now. If he ignored it, it’d probably go away, right?   
He wiggled around pathetically, attempting to look at where Mr Stark was pointing whilst feigning innocent ignorance. “It looks like a rock, Mr S’ark,” Peter said, as sweetly as possible around his heavy tongue that was stubbornly refusing to cooperate with his brain. Stupid tongue. Now was not the time for a malfunction.

“Kid,” Mr Stark said, his tone a startling mix of measured anger and forced calm - which was a little scary, if Peter was being honest. “Now is not the time for your ‘act dumb and maybe he won’t notice’ routine. It’s never worked before and that’s not gonna change now.”

Peter squinted at his mentor, praying that the man wouldn’t try and straight up murder him. Mr Stark looked very stressed, like he needed a trip to a massage therapist or something. May was always talking about how going to the spa was her one saving grace from the pinched nerve in her neck that kept coming back no matter what she did. Maybe Mr Stark was in need of a seaweed wrap and a nice facial. Maybe May could hook him up with the lady that she went to. 

“Peter,” the man said, taking a deep, steadying breath before he let it all out in a rush. “Why is your leg under a boulder?”   


Peter shrugged. “I think it migh’ have somethin’ to do with gravity, Mr S’ark.”

The man repressed a shudder of rage. Peter could see the tension in his shoulders, so palpable it was leaching into the air of their cave. He would definitely have to find Mr Stark a massage therapist.

“Just.. shut up for a second. Jesus  _ fucking _ Christ, Peter. Why didn’t you tell me about this? This is the kind of shit you need to tell me about.”

Peter remained silent, not prepared for, and slightly taken aback by, Mr Stark’s outburst. If he’d had the energy to be offended, he probably would be. 

“I thought we were on the same page, kid. You told me about the… the building, and I thought you’d finally gotten it through your head that I  _ need _ to know about this stuff.”

Peter was tired. He was hungry. He was thirsty. All of that combined made him very uncomfortable, which was enough fuel for him to muster up a snappish reply. “Why? Why d’you  _ need to know _ , Mr S’ark? So you c’n make sure the suit isn’t damaged? So you c’n make sure your inves’ment is still valid?”   


Mr Stark looked shocked at his little eruption, and Peter felt a wave of satisfaction rush through him, though it was dampened by the exhaustion that soon followed. Apparently, getting cranky wasn’t the best survival plan when blood was a rare commodity in your body. His fingers and toes had started to feel numb a while ago, and he didn’t know if it was because of the damp, chilly quality of the cave air, or because of the fact that he was probably still actively bleeding out. He hadn’t actually looked down at the site of his little problem in a while, so he wasn’t one-hundred percent sure.

“Investment? What inve – kid, what do you mean?”

“Y’know, I’m your inves’ment. You’re investin’ millions into me an’ the suit. If somethin’ happens, you’re the one tha’s gotta pay for it. Can’t have the future of the Avengers dead. Ba’ publici’y.” 

“Kid, you think that’s why I got mad about this?”

Peter shrugged, confused by Mr Stark’s appalled tone. He had thought that that was the reason his mentor had been so cranky. He had thought it was the reason behind every lab session, every movie night - just Mr Stark keeping track of his investment. Perhaps the older man had grown a little attached to him, but at the core of all his actions was the true reason he bothered to hang out with a nobody from Queens, and that true reason was that Peter was no more than an asset. An expense that needed to be monitored in case it got to be too much for too little, and his worth expired like a year-old tub of yoghurt. 

He’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop for some time now. Surely, the endless suit damage reports that Karen had had to draw up at the end of each patrol - and therefore the endless repairs that were required - on top of the frequent injuries that Peter sustained while being a reckless idiot were enough to make Mr Stark realise that he just simply wasn’t worth the trouble.

“You’re not an… an  _ investment _ , Peter. I don’t even know where – why would you think that?”

“I – why else woul’ you even in’eract with me? You’re  _ I’on Man _ , you’re  _ Tony S’ark _ , ’m just Pe’er Parker, a random teen’ger from Queens.”

“No, Peter. No, I – I, no, okay.” Mr Stark cut himself off abruptly and brought his fingers to his temples, and Peter didn’t think he’d ever heard the man falter as badly as he did then. With a quick inhale, Mr Stark continued speaking. “You’re like… my kid, okay? You’re my kid.” The man’s voice sounded painfully constricted, and Peter felt like he was having a stroke. The world tilted slightly as he drew in a sharp breath, and Mr Stark was looking at him wearily, hesitantly. All this time Peter had been making the most of his time with the man, convinced that it would all end as soon as his usefulness expired, like it almost had when he stuffed up with the ferry and Mr Stark took his suit away. And all this time, Mr Stark had thought of him as… a son?   


“Why?” Peter asked, and his voice sounded far more disbelieving than he wanted it to. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Why – why me?”   


Mr Stark huffed. “Shit, kid, why not you? You’re – you’re a genius, and I hate to admit it, but you’re funny, too. Your taste in movies is terrible, and you don’t know anything about old music, but… the first time you tumbled into my lab, somehow rambling about both the tensile strength of your webs and Finding Nemo, I thought to myself  _ fuck, this kid is something else _ , and I was right. The world, it’s beat the shit out of you, Pete. Anyone else would have taken that as permission to go off on an evil rampage or something, but you’re still so – so  _ good _ ...”   


Peter was half convinced this was a dream. If it weren’t for the fact that all the other dreams he’d had lately had been nightmares, he’d be fully convinced that he  _ was _ in the middle of a dream, but this was too good for his brain to come up with. His mind wouldn’t give him something like this, where the man he viewed kind of like a dad told him he viewed him kind of like a son. Mr Stark was still talking, and Peter felt like he owed his mentor his ears, at the very least.

“... and I get that this is probably really fucking weird. I’m a middle-aged man professing his fatherly love to you while we’re trapped in a cave that  _ I _ led us to, and you’re probably going to bleed out before anyone finds us because  _ I _ took you on this stupid fucking camping trip, and I guess what I’m trying to say, kid, is that I’m sorry, and I understand if you never want to see me again after this.”   


Maybe this wasn’t the best conversation to have while Peter was high on lack of blood, because he was struggling to see how they got from point A to Point B. Maybe he’d missed a very important section of Mr Stark’s rant while he’d been trying to figure out whether he was dreaming or not. 

Despite the fact that he only half-understood what was going on, Peter thought now was probably a good time to intercept Mr Stark’s spiralling ramble. “No! No, Mr S’ark, I, uh, I ac’ually kin’a, yeah. You’re like my dad, kin’a, so yeah, boogie woogie woogie.” 

Sometimes, Peter hated the fact that he had a constant loop of vines playing in his head. Now was one of those times.

Luckily, Mr Stark was used to it, and brushed right past it, aside from a small snort of disbelief. “Well, would you look at that, we finally agree on something.”

Peter laughed, the sound a raw, painful reminder of the less than laughable situation they were in. It tapered off into the darkness of the cave, the solid, rock walls seeming to absorb the happiness and leaving a hollow, fake noise echoing around their tiny space. The awkwardness of the whole interaction kind of made him want to fully bleed out right then and there, but then Mr Stark was wrapping him in a hug. The man’s strong arms encircled him, and Peter felt a little of the tension rush out of his shoulders. Right then, he felt safer than he had in a long time, so he buried his head in Mr Stark’s shoulder and let out a long sigh.

“Are you alright, kid?” Mr Stark asked, and then winced at the painfully obvious answer to the question.

“Hur’s,” Peter said, though it was closer to a whimper, and he groaned internally at his own weakness. Why was he like this, so pathetically dependent on those around him?

“I know, bud,” Mr Stark replied, and the man weaved his fingers through Peter’s hair. Somehow, his mentor had picked up on the fact that that action could always, without fail, calm Peter down. It was something his father used to do - actually, it was one of the only things he could remember about his father. Ben had picked up the habit soon after he and May took him in, and now here was Mr Stark, doing the same thing. It carried too much weight for something so small, yet Peter relaxed further against Mr Stark’s hand. “I – I don’t think it’s a good idea to lift this boulder off you, because we don’t know what kind of… what’s underneath, so you’ll just have to hang tight for now.”   


Peter sobered at the mention of his dire situation. He didn’t like the way this cave seemed to suck any joy from the air like a malicious vacuum cleaner, so he tried to lighten the conversation just a little bit. “As if you coul’ lift tha’ boul’er by you’self anyway, ol’ man.”

Mr Stark scoffed, but didn’t deny it, and Peter counted that as a victory. The air seemed a little lighter as they settled into the darkness, Mr Stark leaning against the wall of the cave, and Peter’s head in his lap. 

“C’n you do somethin’ fo’ me?” Peter asked, his voice sounding strained even to his own ears.

“Yeah, Pete, what is it?”

“I dunno, somethin’ to distrac’ me. I jus’ need somethin’ to take my mind off… everythin’.”

Mr Stark smiled sadly for a second, before his eyes lit up. “How about I tell you the story of how Rhodey and I met?”

“I though’ you met at MIT?”

“We did, but that’s the short version of a very long, and very interesting, series of events.”

“Alrigh’ then,” Peter said, smiling lightly. Mr Stark often talked of the adventures that he and Rhodey had had during their college days, and he was half convinced it was all a ploy the man had concocted in order to get Peter to go to MIT as well.

“Well, it started on September first, nineteen-eighty-five. I was a shrimpy young boy, though that may surprise you given the intimidating height I hold now.” Peter interrupted Mr Stark’s story with a snort - Peter was small for his age and reached Mr Stark’s chin. The man was by no means  _ tall _ . With a dark glare at the boy in his lap, the man continued his story. “ _ Anyway _ , I was short, but incredibly rich, incredibly smart, and incredibly attractive. I had it all, and that meant people were lining up around the dorm to be with me. Of course, most of them were broke college students who thought they could earn a few hundred dollars by dating Tony Stark, but that didn’t worry fifteen-year-old me. I was obsessed with the attention, though my roommate wasn’t as happy as I was with the constant knocking on our door. Who was my roommate at that point, you ask? Buzz Aldrin – not the first man to walk on the moon, I’m not  _ that _ old. His parents were just fans of the original. Unfortunately, good old Buzz dropped out three weeks in, and to this day I don’t know if it was because of me or because he couldn’t keep up with the course work. I like to think it was the latter, but I think we both know there’s a considerable chance it was the former. I needed a replacement roommate stat, and because I had already established myself as a bit of a problem student, by which I mean I kept correcting the teachers in class or showing up late and hungover, they saddled me with star student, and our favourite hum-drum, one James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes. We did not get off to a good start. He was very bossy, very grumpy and I was my usual energetic and faultless self.”

Peter scoffed at that. “This story’s alrea’y full of holes.”

“That’s very rude, and entirely baseless. Anyway, Rhodey was a regular stick in the mud, and I like to think I had a hand in loosening him up again. He never went out to any parties, no matter how many times I tried to bully him into it. All he did was hole up in our room and study, or go to the library and study, or go to the on-campus Starbucks and study. You get the picture – he studied, and that was about it. However, on one fateful day, he broke. Was it the stress of the upcoming exams? Was it my constant prodding to get him to socialise with people other than the barista at Starbucks? Was it neither of those, and instead something entirely different? That is something we will never know, but the important thing is that he did agree to go to a party with me. Legally, I was a solid six years away from being allowed to drink, but that didn’t bother me, or anyone else on campus - except Rhodey. That man refused to touch a drop of alcohol for half the party, but after six different people tried to grind on him, three spilt their drinks down his front, and one vomited on his shoes, he downed four shots pretty fast and was no longer the only one stone cold sober at the party. Side note, kid, college parties are disgusting places, but high school parties are even worse. All those teenagers pumped full of hormones and alcohol make for a very unsanitary place.”   


“Ain’ tha’ the truth,” Peter muttered, and Tony eyed him suspiciously for a few seconds.

“I’m going to ignore that right now, because you don’t need me ragging on you anymore than I have already, but we will be discussing that later. As it turns out, kid, alcohol does wonders for removing inhibitions, and me and Rhodey got to talking. He told me about how he was at MIT on a scholarship, hence the constant studying, and I told him about how it was expected of me to be top of every class. He told me he wanted to join the Air Force when he finished school because his dad had been a Major before he was killed in action, and I told him about the pressure that was loaded upon me to be the face of my dad’s company. He told me about how Mama Rhodes wasn’t so keen on the idea of her eldest going off to join the military, for obvious reasons, and how their relationship was fairly strained at the moment, and I told him about how my relationship with my dad had been fairly strained for as long as I could remember. As it turned out, Rhodey and I were birds of a feather, except he hated cliches and I surprised everyone by using them at every possible moment so I could annoy the socks off him.”   


“Tha’ seems pretty in character, actually.”   


“Hey, you’re listening to me now. None of this snark, alright? Anyway, we stumbled back to our dorm at three in the morning, inebriated and no longer acquainted with luxuries like balance or clear heads. That was the only time I know of that Rhodey got absolutely smashed - I think the hangover he got after our little outing put him off it for the rest of time. From then on out, he resigned himself to cleaning up my vomit and leaving water and a couple of aspirins on my bedside table any time I went out. It was very nice, made me feel very loved. Somehow, the two of us grew to tolerate each other, and then we actually started enjoying each other's company.”   


“Mm, ‘m pretty sure Rhodey still only  _ tolerates _ you, Mr S’ark.”

“False, he may act like a grumpy old bear, but he loves me deep down. Anyway, one Thanksgiving he found out I didn’t have any plans because my parents had gone off to a conference in London - yes, sad, I know, we shall never speak of it again - and he invited me to his mother’s house for the holiday. I was fully prepared for a silent, awkward dinner because of their aforementioned issues, but apparently I charmed her so much that she and Rhodey talked it out.”   


“So, y’mean tha’ she saw what Rhodey was dealin’ with at MIT and felt sorry enough fo’ him that she was willin’ to have an emotional conversation with him?”   


“No, I mean I charmed the pants off of her. Mrs Rhodes became Mama Rhodes, and I was adopted into the Rhodes family. Mama Rhodes is an excellent cook, and I ate a pound of her mashed potatoes that day, although Rhodey’s little sister almost beat me for the ‘Most Mashed Potatoes Eaten’ award. She was eight at the time, but the amount of food she could shovel into her tiny body was impressive. So that, Peter, is the full story of how Rhodey and I met. Ever since then, he’s been my loyal sidekick in everything I do.”   


“I feel like if Rhodey were here he’d objec’ to tha’.”   


“But he’s not, so he can’t.”

“Ladies and gen’s, the excellen’ observational skills of one Anthony E. S’ark.”

They lapsed into silence after Mr Stark scowled darkly and yanked on one of his curls a little harder than necessary. Peter’s mouth was dry and gritty, like there was a mouthful of sand that coated every inch of his tongue. Swallowing was painful, and he tried to ignore it, but it had gotten to the point where it was all he could think about no matter how hard he tried to  _ not _ think about it. His tired mind was playing tricks on him, and he could have sworn he heard the trickling of water somewhere nearby. It was a cruel hallucination, because the noise only made him more thirsty.

“Mr Sta’k?” Peter croaked, finally relenting.

“Yeah, bud?”   


“I–I’m thirs’y.”   


Mr Stark’s face fell as he looked down at Peter. “I know, Pete, I’m sorry. I don’t have any water – I… didn’t think to bring any.”

Desperation took over Peter’s mind, clouding his thoughts until all he could think of was the burning thirst in his throat. The damn trickling noise still hadn’t gone away, and his head was telling him it was real. “I can  _ hear _ it, Mr S’ark. It’s there,” he groaned.

“What are you…” Mr Stark trailed off, and before he could figure out what was happening Peter was gently lifted off his mentor’s lap and placed on the ground.

“Wait, c’me back. ’m sorry, Mr S’ark!” Peter called, desperate to keep the man near him. 

“Don’t worry, Pete, I’ll be back soon. It’s just… I think you’re right. I think I can hear water.”   


Was Mr Stark being serious, or had the thirst gotten to his mind too, and this was all just a joint hallucination? There was a victorious gasp from the shadows, and Mr Stark appeared from the darkness, holding a scrap of t-shirt that seemed to be… soaked in water!

“Peter, you’re brilliant. Brilliant, kid. There’s a section of the back wall of the cave that’s got water running down it,” Mr Stark crowed, his voice full of happiness that not even the darkness of the cave could take away. The man propped Peter’s head up, and wrung the rag so that water could dribble into his mouth and down his throat. It was cold, and tasted slightly of iron, but Peter had never been happier to drink water in his life, not even at that magical hour of the night when cold water was the best thing in the world. 

Peter grinned up at Mr Stark, who was drinking his own share of the water. The discovery of a water source offered them something they hadn’t had until now, and that was a chance at survival. Hope was a funny thing. It could be ignited or extinguished by one single happening, but right now it was burning bright in the pit of Peter’s stomach. He may not be able to feel his leg, and his stab wound may be radiating waves of pain through his torso, but now, at least, he and Mr Stark had a chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys liked it! Sorry it took a little longer than normal to pump it out. We'd love to hear what you think about this chap :D


	6. Tangled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, it's us, finally returning to this little fic. We know we've been gone for a shameful amount of time, so without further ado, here is our long-awaited sixth chapter. :)

He and Peter didn’t have a fucking chance.

It was this cold, crystal-clear thought that Tony woke up to one day, the telltale slither of musty light the only indication that it was, in fact, daytime. Whether he had been truly sleeping, in fact, was questionable; he tended to merely drift in and out in states of half-mustered consciousness, floating between a dazed sort of awareness and what might be a slight doze. He could never last long in these states, could never really fall into a proper rest. The pull was always too great, the all-consuming desire to just  _ check on the kid,  _ to make sure he was still there. To make sure he was still breathing.

Tony had never been an overtly religious man, but he was beginning to feel as though he could seriously embrace the practice. Already had, even. That was all there was left to do, because Peter still had a knife literally embedded in his stomach and a boulder crushing his leg, and Tony couldn’t think of anything to do but pray. Who he was praying to, he didn’t know. He wasn’t even sure if he  _ could  _ pass it off as praying; half-deranged pleas about Peter staying alive barely constituted any sort of sane devotion. But they were trapped in a cave, and Peter was slowly dying, and it felt like several small eternities had passed, and  _ no one was coming for them. _

A day had passed, and then a night, and then another day, and they were all melting into each other, an abyss of helpless  _ existence  _ that never ended, except for when it would, eventually, because everything had a limit and this cave was  _ no fucking different.  _ He’d been dealing with limits his whole life, never able to beat the clock, always running out of time. His parents. His friendship with pretty much anyone except Rhodey. His own reputation, which had crumbled so magnificently during the events of Sokovia - had, perhaps, been on an inevitable decline since he first donned the crude iron man suit in that cave. The Avengers. 

The  _ goddamn Avengers.  _ Bringing together a group of remarkable people. What good was remarkability going to do him now? He was nothing but a piece of metal, really, and he’d been caught without it and now he was absolutely, terrifyingly fucked. He was going to die, nothing but skin and bone and a pathetic helplessness - an entirely mortal death. He’d worked so hard to find his purpose, to create his legacy, to try and save people and undo some of the bad in the world, that he’d fallen into the trap of thinking he was invincible. 

Well, he was dying like any other man now.

But first, he would have to watch it happen to the kid.

“Kid,” Tony suddenly choked out, and he scrambled to his knees, all rational thoughts abandoned aas he realised it had been  _ too long.  _ He’d been drifting in a lazy half-awareness for too long, and he hadn’t checked, hadn’t looked, hadn’t made sure-

But there it was.

Rise, fall. Rise, fall.

He was still breathing.

For now.

~~~

Soon, it became impossible to bear the stifling silence of the cave, with nothing but Tony’s own mutterings about Peter’s breathing breaking the quiet. Tony thought that it would have been slightly more tolerable, if only Peter would just  _ wake up.  _ But he had fallen asleep at some point on the first day, and hadn’t risen beyond an entirely delirious state of half-consciousness since.

Tony fed him water. Tightened the makeshift bandages on his wound. Tried with all his might to move the boulder off the kid’s leg, even though it had been he, Tony, who had declared that such a feat would be impossible. Back when they’d only been in the cave for a day. Back when he’d still been capable of rational thought, when he hadn’t entirely fallen to pieces.

The silence stretched into something that was tangibly painful, and Tony could take it no more.

“Peter,” Tony whispered softly, crawling over to the kid and sitting beside him, all resemblance of dignity entirely abandoned. “Hey, Peter.”

Rise, fall. Rise, fall. The faint rhythm was all he got in response, sounding flimsier than ever, as though it could cease at any moment.

“Know you can’t hear me,” Tony went on, mumbling the words down to where the kid’s face was illuminated in the shaft of light. “You’re unconscious, right? Unconscious people can’t hear stuff, so I’m told. You know where I learnt that? Personal experience. Been unconscious a lot, Pete. Been unconscious a lot.”

He let out a deep sigh, half-aware that he sounded entirely deluded, yet totally beyond the point of caring.

“It’s kinda nice,” he mused numbly. “Kinda relaxing, ya know? Everyone’s worrying about you, but you just get to...float. Hope you’re floating right now, kid. Floating down a river or something. It would make me feel better. Make your poor old man not cry himself to sleep tonight. Oh, wait, who am I kidding? I won’t be sleeping.”

He let out a dark chuckle, harsh and forced, and it sounded so unnatural, so painfully  _ grating  _ against the despair of these cave walls, that he almost  _ did  _ feel like crying.

“Ya know what?” he went on. “You could be in a coma. Probably are, at this point. It would be just my luck. On all the shows, doctors say that talking to the people in comas is a good thing. It’s meant to, I dunno, wake them up. Give them a motive, ya know? Like a murder motive, but kinda the opposite. An alive motive.”

Peter remained absolutely and entirely still. Tony reached out and placed a blind hand on his chest, because it wasn’t enough to just hear it anymore. There, underneath his hand, he could feel it; the faint, weak, laboured beating of Peter’s heart. The urge to keep talking was overwhelming. Anything to break this terrifying, endless silence.

“You gotta find your alive motive, Pete,” he mumbled, sounding entirely pathetic, like a five-year-old whining about having to wait for dinner. “Please. I know you don’t wanna, I know you really can’t be bothered right now, but just do it for me, okay? Do it for your Tony-Man. Your Iron-Stark. The big old me. The cool one, remember? Hey, if you don’t wake up right this second, kid, I’m cooler than you. I’m cooler. I’m cooler, I’m the coolest, I’m cool, I’m-”

He broke off, barely noticing the salty tears that were running down his cheeks now, despite the fact that he hadn’t freely cried like this in what felt like centuries.

“Okay, I lied,” he choked out. “Liar, liar, pants on fire. So sue me. Truth is, kid, you’re cooler. You’re way cooler. You’re, like, an actually decent human being, even though you’ve been through some shit, and how do you do that, kid, honestly, give a grumpy old man some pointers, please. Give me all the goddamn pointers. You’re kind of a genius - probably gonna be the next Einstein, or some shit - and you have your stupid,  _ fucking  _ Lego -” He let out a strangled, anguished chuckle, and clutched his hand even tighter to Peter’s chest, the beating of his heart somehow grounding him, and went on. “And my god, I just love you, Pete. I fucking love you. Love you to the moon and back, and all that, and maybe even Saturn. Love you like I love Pepper. Wait, no, I don’t, that’s wrong, that’s wrong, Stark, you idiot. Love you the same level as Pepper, but not the same way. There we go. You’re my kid - told you that already, didn’t I? Look at me, rambling on. Love you as my kid, kid, and I’d do anything - buy you all the damn Lego in the world, cut off my own tongue,  _ anything  _ \- just to have you open your eyes, right now, and just to be able to get us out of here. If we got out, you’d come back to the Compound with me and yell at me for this as much as you want, and I’d never take you on a goddamn camping trip again, and we’d have to work out some arrangements with your May, Aunt May, because I’d have to see you, like, every day, at least, because I’d just have to. Because you’re my kid. Because I love you, I guess. Because I do. And you need to  _ wake up right this fucking second,  _ kid, or I might just lose it. I actually might. I am about to throw the biggest fucking toddler tantrum if you don’t wake the fuck up, Peter Parker.”

He couldn’t think of anything else to say - he didn’t know if he  _ could  _ keep speaking, even if he’d had the words. He could feel the mental breakdown that had been brewing for days now threatening to take over completely, and he thought he’d done a pretty good job holding it in so far, but the tears had opened some kind of floodgate within him that he hadn’t known existed. And so Tony collapsed - just fell, crumpled entirely - onto the ground beside Peter, and he screwed up his face and cried silently into the floor, unable to do anything else, unable to even  _ think,  _ a fist still clutched tightly around Peter’s chest. 

And the beating went on. 

If only faintly. If only for a little longer.

~~~

It took Tony an embarrassingly protracted amount of time - and several more shameless bouts of deranged crying - to even think of her.

_ Pepper. _

The CEO of Stark Industries. His fiance. The only woman he’d actually, properly loved.  _ Pepper. _

“Oh my god,” he mumbled, because talking aloud to himself was just his new normal. “My God, Stark, you’re an idiot.”

He propped himself up on his elbows, gazed down at Peter. The kid was looking paler than ever. Tony was sure they’d been in here for at least three days. He knew he should be starving, but he didn’t feel anything, wasn’t sure he could. The all-consuming, parasitic terror for Peter’s life left room for absolutely nothing else.

“Pete, I got good news,” he mumbled. “Well, dunno if good’s the right word. Bit of a stretch. Neutral news, maybe? See, I know, I’ve probably mentioned her name a dozen times by now, in these little one-sided chats we have, but I’ve got this wife, right - oh, no, fiance, she’s not my wife, we haven’t done the marriage, haven’t gotten the wed on, not yet. Think you know her. Pepper, like table salt, but spicy. That woman. She’s got half a brain on her. Kinda forgot she did, until now. Been too busy blabbering, huh? Well, she’s got access to FRIDAY at home, who I created, by the way, so she’s one smart cookie. She might be able to find us. Probably is already looking. She’s a real committed girlfriend.”

He swallowed uneasily, ignoring the lump in his throat, ignoring the tightening in his chest that told him this hope was anything but realistic. He didn’t doubt that Pepper  _ would  _ get worried and start searching for them, but even when coupled with Tony’s technology, the chances of her actually finding them were pitifully low. It would take a gargantuan amount of luck, and Tony hadn’t been privy to more than a sprinkle’s worth his whole life.

“She’s gonna find us,” he went on, ignoring the mildly-functional part of his brain, not even sure if he was talking to Peter or himself anymore. “She will, kid. Know she will. She’s gonna ride in here, ride in better than Flynn Ryder, and get us out of here. This is basically gonna be Rapunzel, huh, Pete? Swap the tower for a fucking  _ cave,  _ and a Flynn for a Pepper, and you’ve got Tangled: Live Action. Oh, and swap the evil witch for one Veronica Marquez. That  _ bitch.  _ If we ever get out of here, I’ll kill her. I will, I swear to God. And we will get out of here. Pepper’s got this. She’s as peppery as her name. She’s got this in the bag, she does, trust me, Pete.”

Tony shook himself, leaning closer to Peter, staring down at his now almost-translucent face, and let himself believe, for just a second, for one glorious moment, that the words he was now clumsily stringing together were true. 

Pepper could do it. If anyone could do it, it was Pepper Potts.

Right?

_ Right? _

“Right, kid?” Tony whispered.

He got no reply.

~~~

Pepper Potts was well acquainted with the shenanigans of Tony Stark. She was also well acquainted with the man himself, as she should be after knowing him for over a decade. Their relationship had been unpredictable - and still was, when she really thought about it - though whether that was down to Tony and his eccentricities or her own inability to resist teasing him, she couldn’t say. Recently, it had quietened into something she could almost call domestic. Yes, she was the CEO of a billion-dollar company, and yes, he was an alien-fighting superhero with a penchant for attracting mortal danger, but they had settled into their own little version of normal.

One night, when they were laying in bed, Pepper had turned to Tony. He’d been reading on his tablet, probably an article about quantum mechanics or some other unintelligible topic that Pepper didn’t have a hope of grasping. In that moment, he’d looked rather peaceful; his hair still wet from a shower and smelling faintly of the two-in-one, green apple scented shampoo he used, his new reading glasses that he hated more than anything in the world pressed against his nose.

(“I’m an  _ old man _ now, Pep. I have a reputation and these do not fit into it.”) 

“No surprises anymore, okay, Tony?” she’d said, her voice soft in the dim light of their room. 

He had turned to her, a faint smile on his lips. Pepper knew that Tony would never be able to promise her this, not with the lives they led, but she wanted to be told that the next ten, twenty, thirty years of her life would be spent with this man by her side and that the only thing she’d have to worry about was whether there was enough milk in the fridge.

For all his blabber about being as emotionally closed off as a thousand-year-old boulder, Tony understood.

“Of course, Ms Potts. No more surprises.”

The next day, Tony had introduced her to Peter Parker, and the promise of no more surprises had flown out the window. Tony was lucky that Pepper was instantly won over by that child’s impeccable manners and beautiful doe eyes, because otherwise she might have murdered him. It helped that Peter’s aunt was a wonderful woman, and that they got along like a house on fire.

Pepper nearly murdered Tony again when she found out that he was letting sweet, innocent, golden-hearted Peter swing around the city as a spider-themed vigilante, exposing himself to all sorts of danger in the process. But, she supposed, it made sense. Peter was essentially a younger version of Tony, if Tony had been taught proper manners. They were the same person, give or take a few years, so what was one more superhero-shaped similarity? 

It was a surprise when Tony invited Peter over to the Compound for an ‘overnight stay’ (the man refused to call it a sleepover, because “I’m not  _ seven _ , Pepper.”) He spent the entire day rushing around their floor, setting up various technologies designed to keep teenageers entertained, only to completely ignore it all when Peter actually arrived because they spent all their time down in the lab, scheming and building. 

It was only when Pepper watched Tony make a triple batch of pancakes in the morning (despite the fact that the man had the cooking ability of a bowl of Jell-O) to keep up with Peter’s metabolism, that it had really clicked for Pepper. And when it clicked, well, that had been a surprise too. Tony had never really been a kid person. In fact, Pepper could count a handful of times where he had literally turned on his heel and sped away at the sight of children. And yet - her fiancé loved this kid. That was not something she could deny.

And so, when Peter and Tony didn’t come home from their camping trip at the time they had specified, Pepper didn’t worry; she was used to Tony Stark’s shenanigans, after all. It was entirely possible they’d just been a little late in leaving, or perhaps they’d stopped along the way for ice cream at Peter’s request. 

There were a million different reasons they could be late getting back, and yet Pepper could not shake the feeling pressing down on her shoulders, heavy and suffocating as it whispered her worst fears in her ear, the words twisting themselves into vicious barbs that embedded themselves in her heart. Somewhere along the way, she had come to think of Peter as her own, and so the worry that settled deep in her gut was not just for Tony, but also for the angel of a boy that wore his heart on his sleeve and somehow managed to wiggle his way into everyone else’s.

An hour after the boys were supposed to come, Pepper had decided something was wrong. Tony had promised her no more surprises, and while he hadn’t exactly stuck to it since then, all his surprises had been good ones so far… or at least, not entirely bad ones. He wouldn’t do this unless he had no other choice. 

Pepper was sure of that, but certainty wasn’t enough to stop her hand from shaking as she picked up her phone to call the only two people she could rely on when Tony was gone.

“Happy, Rhodey?” she said, and the shakiness from her hand had moved to her voice now.

“Pepper? What’s wrong?” came Rhodey’s voice through the speaker of her phone. Of course he would know that something wasn’t right. Publicly, he may be Tony Stark’s best friend, but she was just as much his friend as he was Tony’s. In the early days, they’d bonded over how much work a certain genius, billionaire, ex-playboy was.

“It could be nothing. It’s probably nothing, except I also don’t think it’s nothing,” Pepper started, and she hated the rambling words that fell out of her mouth. After so many years of being a smooth-talking, flawless CEO, sometimes she forgot the way her thoughts could move so fast they stumbled out of her mouth without slowing down. 

She took a deep breath. Now was not the time to fall apart. That could happen later, when Tony and Peter were home safe and she could afford to be a trembling mess of fear. 

“What’s going on, Pepper?” Happy said, and his gruff tone was even tighter than normal. 

“Tony and Peter, they went camping last week. Just trying to get out of the city, except they were supposed to come back an hour ago and they aren’t here yet.” Pepper was pleased to hear that her voice was much calmer now.

“Maybe they’re just delayed, or Tony went off on one of his spontaneous adventures and lost track of time?” Happy suggested, but Pepper could hear the doubt in his voice. The man knew that Tony was past the time of spontaneous adventures, especially when he knew Pepper was waiting for him at home.

“Besides, if anything happened to them, they’ve got their suits with them, right? I know we don’t give them enough credit for it but they are capable of handling themselves,” Rhodey added, and it would be sound advice, except there was something terribly wrong with that reasoning.

“They don’t have their suits,” Pepper said, and she was dangerously close to losing control of her voice again. “They left them behind.  _ They don’t have their suits _ .”

There was silence over the call as the realisation dawned on both Happy and Rhodey. Without their suits, Tony was human, and Peter, as powerful as he was, was just a kid. He wouldn’t be able to defend Tony against anything, and Tony probably wouldn’t let him anyway, not that Peter would let that stop him.

“Do you really think they’re in trouble, Pepper?” Rhodey asked, and his voice was serious.

Pepper didn’t pause. She was right, she knew that. She could  _ feel  _ it. “Yes.”

“I’ll be right over. We’ll sort this out.” Rhodey hung up, and Pepper had a sneaking suspicion she knew the plan that the man was already forming, but she couldn’t find it in herself to be mad, not now.

Happy stayed on the line with her, and provided assurance in his own, emotionally stunted way. Just before he hung up, he promised he’d be at the compound as quickly as he possibly could. 

The two men arrived roughly at the same time, hurrying into the compound on each other’s heels and looking almost as stressed as Pepper felt. Despite the gnawing anxiety in her stomach, she managed to maintain a facade of quiet calm. It was something she was very well practiced at.

“Pepper,” Rhodey said, his steps still a little unsteady even with the leg braces. “Did Tony ever tell you if he had a way to contact them?”

Pepper didn’t need to be told who  _ they  _ were, though she felt a small spark of satisfaction in knowing her hunch was right. The feeling was quickly tamped down by a simmering anger, because Rhodey was calling  _ them _ . But she knew he was right in doing so, because no matter how things had gone down, no matter how black and blue Tony had been when he came back, no matter how quiet and sullen he’d been for days, they were still a team, even if it was in the barest sense of the word. They would help, they  _ had _ to help, and Pepper knew how to get in touch with them.

“Tony would kill me for letting you in on this. He didn’t want you in Ross’ firing line,” Pepper said as she strode through the halls of the Compound towards Tony’s lab. “Besides, I’m going to kill him for not showing up anyway, so it cancels out.”

“I’ll be right alongside you,” Happy muttered darkly, and Pepper spared the man a small smile, though it felt more like a grimace than anything else.

Happy and Rhodey followed behind her as she led them to a seemingly random drawer in a seemingly random workbench. After FRIDAY opened it, Pepper pulled out a small, black flip phone, reminiscent of the ones that dominated her twenties. 

With steady hands, she passed it over to Rhodey. The man pressed a few buttons and then held the phone out in front of him. The sound of the dial tone filled the air of the workshop, ringing shrill in Pepper’s ears, and she realised Rhodey had put it on speaker. Her heart sped up as the phone clicked, and then a familiar voice fed through the phone.

“Tony?” Steve Rogers said, and Pepper closed her eyes in relief. The man had picked up, and better yet, he didn’t sound angry. More tentative, than anything else.

“Not Tony,” Rhodey said, his voice grim. “But this is about him.”

“What’s happened?” Steve asked, catching on instantly. It wasn’t that hard to figure out, but Pepper was still thankful they didn’t have to waste any time.

“He’s… missing. We need your help.”

There was a pause, heavy with the possibility that Steve might just say no, might hang up and ignore the situation entirely.

Pepper bit her lip anxiously.

“We’ll be there as soon as possible.”

The call ended, and Pepper let out a breath. “Well, at least that’s sorted now.”

Happy nodded, but then his expression clouded over. “Now you can tell us why the hell Tony decided to up and leave so he could go camping, and why he took Peter with him, but not a suit.”

~~~

Once Pepper filled the two men in on the circumstances of Tony’s impromptu camping trip, they got to work making a map of the area he and Peter had planned to go. It wasn’t exactly a necessary task, seeing as FRIDAY could easily render them an electronic one in a second, but it kept them busy. Right now, that was more important than any necessities. Besides, it wasn’t like they could do anything until the rest of the Avengers (or perhaps Ex-Avengers?) showed up, and who knew when that would be? 

No one, not even Tony, knew where they were hiding out. For all they knew, the Ex-Avengers could be in the Maldives, or Moscow, or Haiti.

Except Pepper  _ could _ say for sure where the Ex-Avengers were, and that was standing outside the gates of the Avengers Compound. FRIDAY had pulled up a holographic screen of the group, and in it Pepper counted three familiar figures. Clint was staring off at something in the distance and munching absentmindedly on a sandwich while Sam Wilson hung behind him, wearing an unremarkable baseball cap and sunglasses. Natasha Romanoff was levelling an ice cold glare at the two men, and Pepper saw her mouth move. Perhaps she was scolding them for one of their moronic shenanigans as she so often did. She had always liked Natasha, though they had never gotten around to sitting down and having a proper conversation. Pepper regretted that now.

Peering awkwardly into the camera was none other than Steve Rogers. His eyes were tired but earnest, and the navy cap that sat on his head did nothing to hide the beginnings of a Tony Stark-worthy beard growing on his chin. In that moment, Pepper hated him. Hated the fact that the man was the reason her own fiancé had come back beaten black and blue, with a head full of nightmares that left him sweating and writhing in the sheets of their bed, and a shattered heart that stabbed loneliness into his chest with each beat. It wasn’t fair of her, she knew that. Knowing Tony, he would have given just as good as he got, and despite all that had happened, Steve was  _ here _ , ready to risk everything to help them. She needed to control herself - Steve wasn’t the enemy anymore.

Pepper couldn’t help but notice the people who were missing. Empty spaces were often more noticeable than filled ones, after all. The small, auburn-haired figure of Wanda Maximoff was absent, and Pepper felt a small pang of sadness at that. The woman, who was barely past childhood herself, was far too young to have gone through everything she had, to have lost everything she had. In a way, Wanda reminded her of Peter, and the missed opportunity to make things right between herself and the young woman pulled at her consciousness uncomfortably. 

Barnes was also missing, and though Pepper had only seen him in photos and video clips of the chaos he’d wreaked over the last year (though from what she’d heard from Tony and Rhodey, that hadn’t been entirely his fault), she was sure she’d have been able to identify him if he were there. A part of her was glad he hadn’t shown up. Tony had confessed to her the truth behind his parent’s deaths that night, and it may not have been Barnes’ fault, but he still held the face of the person that had murdered Tony’s parents in cold blood. 

The last man that Tony and Peter had told her about (one far more ecstatically than the other) could apparently shrink and grow on command. After the fight, they’d figured out his identity and his whereabouts, and Pepper couldn’t see a trace of Scott Lang. Unless he was in tiny-mode, the man was probably still obeying his house arrest.

There was a moment of silence between the three of them. Rhodey had stiffened at the sight of the screen, and Happy wasn’t looking much more relaxed than the other man. Pepper glanced down at their map, which seemed far more pitiful than it had before their guests arrived. She pulled half-heartedly at a curling corner, trying to flatten it out to no avail.

“Well, I suppose we better let them in, hm?” Pepper said, getting up suddenly. The scrape of her chair on the tile floor made the hairs on her arms stand up uncomfortably, and she winced at the sound. “We don’t have any time to waste.”

She strode down the hallway. She could hear Rhodey and Happy following behind her, but she didn’t slow down. The clock was ticking, and the knowledge that at any moment it could pass the point of no return for Tony and Peter pushed her forward.

She reached the entrance of the compound and planted herself behind the spotless glass doors that stretched up to the ceiling, letting in a huge amount of natural light and giving her a spectacular view of the troop of Ex-Avengers she’d asked FRIDAY to let in.

They were marching across the neatly trimmed lawn, a wall of determinedly expressionless faces given away by their tentative steps, as if unsure whether this was all a trap.

They reached the doors, and Pepper steeled herself. She was already nearing the end of her rope with each second that passed without Peter and Tony, back here and safe by her side. If the Ex-Avengers refused to help, she didn’t know what she’d do. Pepper considered herself to be a reasonable woman - meaning, she wasn’t delusional. She knew that she, Rhodey, and Happy couldn’t find them alone.

Steve Rogers entered first, his eyes scanning the spacious entry hall as if he expected cannons to descend on him and start blasting. When he saw that it was all clear, his shoulders slumped slightly, and his face fell when his eyes landed on Pepper, Rhodey and Happy - or more specifically, the distinct lack of Tony.

Empty spaces were often more noticeable than filled ones, after all.

“So he’s really missing?” 

Pepper just nodded. She didn’t need words, and apparently neither did Steve.

“How can we help?”

~~~

They gathered in an unused conference room, and Pepper settled into the chair at the head of the table. That, right there, was where she felt at home. She knew what to do when she was in a chair like that, all black leather and expensive padding. 

“First off, let me explain. I’m sure you have plenty of questions, and I hope I can answer them,” she said, testing the waters as she watched the Ex-Avengers’ reactions carefully.

Clint snorted. “Yeah, like how the fuck did  _ Tony Stark _ go missing. He’s literally Iron Man.”

“I think she was just getting to that, Birdbrain,” Natasha snapped, before offering Pepper a small smile. Pepper smiled back.

“I was, actually. Well, essentially, Tony went camping-”

“He went  _ camping _ ?” Sam squawked, his eyes wide. “Tony Stark, who once said that public transportation was so disgusting it should be eradicated, went  _ camping _ ?”

Natasha elbowed him in the ribs.

“Yes, Sam,” Pepper said, her tone carefully measured. “He went camping with his intern, Peter.” She stuck closely to the carefully constructed cover story she had architectured for the pair that could explain away any questions as to why Peter spent so much time in the private lab of a billionaire. She knew Peter wouldn’t appreciate her outing his secret identity to anyone, even if it were to the Avengers, and she sent a meaningful look to Happy and Rhodey to make sure they got the message. 

“So not only did Tony go camping, but he did so with a twenty-something college student?” Sam asked, and he was gawking now, the disbelief in his voice palpable.

“No, because Peter is sixteen,” Happy interjected. They were the first words he’d said for the entire debrief, and they were filled with his own kind of fierce protectiveness. Sometimes, Pepper forgot how much Happy liked Peter.

Clint choked on his sandwich. “A  _ child _ ? I’m gonna have to agree with the lesser bird on this one. This doesn’t seem very on-brand for Stark.”

“Yeah, because you knew him so well to begin with,” Rhodey snorted, and Clint narrowed his eyes at the man.

Pepper cleared her throat. They needed to get back on track. “Well, the fact of the matter is that he and Peter are rather close. It’s not surprising, really, given that that boy can win over anyone he meets, including me. They went camping together, and were supposed to return…” Pepper checked her watch, her eyes widening as she realised how much time had passed while they’d waited for the rest of the Avengers to get here, “...four hours ago. Something has happened to them, I’m sure of it. This isn’t like Tony, especially when he’s got Peter with him.”

Steve’s eyes widened. “I agree. Tony may not be the most responsible adult on the planet, but he wouldn’t keep you waiting like this, Pepper.”

“So, where did they go? What’s our plan?” Natasha said, leaning forward in her chair. Her hands were steepled on the table, and her newly-blonde hair swung forward to brush the backs of her palms.

“A campground not too far from here. We can get there in less than half an hour if we take the Quinjet,” Rhodey said, already heaving himself to his feet.

The rest of them followed suit, and Pepper led the way to the hangar where they kept the jet. She heard Clint mutter to Natasha about how much he missed flying it, and her heart panged at that. The Ex-Avengers had lost things in the split too, even if they were just little things.

She felt a hand on her arm, and turned to see Natasha. The woman’s face was smooth and gentle. “We’re going to find them, Pepper. It’s okay to be worried, but we’ll get them back.”

“I know we will,” Pepper replied, offering the other woman a trembling smile. “I won’t entertain any other options.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's that. Another apology about the long wait on this one, we both have commitment issues, apparently. Let us know how you felt about this chapter in the comments, because it genuinely makes us so happy to read them! More coming soon :D


	7. Superman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, we have finally returned with the much-awaited seventh instalment of this fic. We've been a bit swamped with schoolwork, so sorry about the delay, but hopefully we can make up for it with a chapter that neither of us entirely hate?? It's a new feeling for us. Anyway, hope y'all enjoy!

Rhodey was feeling decidedly guilty.

He was familiar with the emotion. It was an unavoidable side effect of being an active serviceman. Or, not so active anymore, he supposed.

He stared down at his leg braces in distaste. They were the whole reason behind his guilt in the first place. Not only had they removed all possibility of him returning to the field ever again and, instead, permanently planted his ass on the bench, but they’d also taken him further away from Tony than he should have ever been.

Something Rhodey had discovered a little while ago was that learning how to walk again when the bottom half of his body had suddenly stopped responding to the commands he had been sending all his life actually took up a fair portion of his time. And by a fair portion, he meant it became an all-consuming thing that he could never escape from. It was fused with his identity now. 

He wasn’t Rhodey, he wasn’t Colonel Rhodes, he wasn’t even Platypus, not anymore. He was just the guy who couldn’t walk by himself anymore, the guy who got a fancy set of leg braces custom made for his legs by Tony Stark himself. He was the guy who really should stop feeling sorry for himself because he was in, frankly, the best position someone like him could be in.

Best friends with a world renowned master of mechanics and engineering who literally made it possible for him to walk again despite what the doctors said - why was he complaining? And half the time, Rhodey thought that the people who said that had a point. Yeah, he had it bad, but others had it worse. Other times, he felt like passionately flipping the bird to anyone who dared approach him with that particular brand of bullshit. 

Because, yeah, he did have it bad. Really fucking bad. And sometimes he threw himself a good old pity party. That was okay, his therapist said. It was part of the healing process. It was okay to be mad at the universe for allowing him to be torn out of the sky like dandelion fluff snagged from the wind by the clawing hands of a young child. It was okay to be mad at Vision for shooting him down. It was okay to be mad at Steve for being the reason they had to fight it out at the airport in Germany at all.

It was okay to be mad at Tony, too, his therapist said. 

What wasn’t okay was keeping his distance from his best friend, his therapist said. Apparently they needed to work these things out instead of ignoring them. That was when Rhodey decided to stop listening to what his therapist said.

Soon later, the guilt followed, and Rhodey began to wonder if his therapist had been right after all.

Because he couldn’t keep ignoring Tony the way he was. It was unhealthy, the way he turned his phone over whenever he got a call from the man, claiming a jam-packed physical therapy schedule in order to explain away the silence.

And now, just as Rhodey had been working up the nerve to call his friend, the guy turns up missing. Fucking typical.

The guilt that had only grown in Rhodey’s gut since he picked up Pepper’s call was also fucking typical. It sent him back, way back, to two-thousand-and-ten, when Tony was still wrapped up in the haze of bad lifestyle choices and just slightly harder to deal with. He’d turned up missing then, too, and he’d returned with a glowing, metal heart and torment in his eyes.

Rhodey wondered what his best friend would return with this time, because he  _ would _ return. Rhodey would make sure of that.

He sat on a bench in the Quinjet, Happy Hogan on one side and Pepper Potts on the other. Sam Wilson was across from him, sitting silently next to Steve Rogers like a guard dog. It was almost comical - in fact, it probably would be if Rhodey weren’t entirely focused on the dark feeling seeping into the walls of his chest, taking up residence in his lungs and weighing them down like tar. 

He’d removed himself from Tony’s life for just a few months, and the man had managed to acquire a child for himself and, seemingly, a sudden desire to go camping. Of course, Rhodey had met Peter before, on the few occasions where he’d been unable to find an excuse to remove himself from Tony’s company (and fuck, he sounded like a terrible person when he said it like that, but he didn’t know how else he could). The kid had been nice as hell, that was for sure, though a little more energetic than Rhodey felt he could keep up with these days. Like a mini-Tony, if Tony had been raised by literally anyone other than Howard Stark and taught basic social etiquette. Rhodey could understand where Tony’s infatuation with the kid came from, especially because Peter was one of the few people able to keep up with Tony in the lab, but he hadn’t thought their relationship was at the level that warranted a private camping trip.

It seemed there was quite a lot he didn’t know about Tony nowadays, through no fault but his own. 

And now, he didn’t even know where Tony  _ was _ .

But that was going to change, because they’d just touched down as close to the campsite as Barton and Romanov had been able to get them. Through the window, Rhodey could see the gravel ground of a remote parking lot, but, more importantly, he caught a glimpse of Tony’s most conspicuous car (which, frankly, wasn’t saying much). The vehicle was sullied by dust and dirt that had accumulated over five days of disuse, sitting in the wilderness, unprotected by its usual spot in Tony’s garage. 

“That’s Tony’s car,” Rhodey said, nodding to the vehicle as he clued everyone else in on his epiphany. 

He saw Pepper relax a little in the corner of his eye. “At least we know they made it this far,” she said. 

“Yeah, that’s  _ all _ we know,” Clint snorted. His comment earned him a sharp jab in the ribs from Natasha. 

“Alright,” Steve said, rather pointedly, leveling Clint with a sharp look. “I suppose the only logical action from here is to head to the campsite where they were supposed to go. From there we can plan our next step.”

“Sounds great,  _ Captain _ ,” Rhodey said, his tone only lightly mocking. Stress made him more sarcastic than usual, and with Tony gone someone had to step up to the role of sassy asshole. “Let’s get going.”

“Wait, Rhodes. Someone should probably stay behind in the jet,” Steve suggested carefully, eyeing Rhodey’s leg braces.

He bristled. “You better not be suggesting that I be the one to stay behind, Rogers, because that won’t be happening,” he growled, his tone low and dangerous. His best friend was out there, and his best friend’s…child? If their positions were switched, Tony wouldn’t sit idly by while others did all the heavy lifting, and Rhodey sure as hell wasn’t going to let the man down by failing to help find him. 

“Settle down, boys. We don’t have enough time for you two to have a testosterone party, alright? Happy and I can stay behind,” Pepper snapped, and though she didn’t look particularly happy about her own decision, she sat back down on the bench resolutely, eyeing Rhodey and Steve sternly. Happy opened his mouth to protest, but was soon silenced by another brutally steely look from Pepper.

Sufficiently cowed, Rhodey backed down and lowered his figurative hackles. The woman was, as usual, entirely correct. They didn’t know how much time they had until it was too late for Tony or Peter, or both of them. It would be idiotic to waste seconds they might not have on little spats.

Steve seemed to be thinking along the same lines, because he nodded his head at Pepper. “Thank you. I’m just thinking that they could have heard us land. For all we know, they’re making their way over here as we speak.”   
No one pointed out that for all they knew, Peter and Tony could also be dead. 

An uncomfortable silence fell over their impromptu rescue team, a seemingly solid presence pressing over all of them. Steve was the first to duck out from underneath it, as he pressed the button that opened the doors and jogged down the steep incline of the ramp. Everyone soon followed suit, and Rhodey trailed along behind them. It always took him a little while to acclimate to walking with his leg braces again after sitting down for a while, and the concerned look that Steve shot him was irksome beyond belief.

He was tired of being coddled. It was everyone’s knee-jerk reaction to being around him, seemingly. His mother had stayed at his apartment for two months after the accident, and by the end of her stay Rhodey had been going near insane. He loved his mother, but after eight weeks of her incessant and oppressive concern, he was done. He had thought Tony would be a little better - the man had had enough injuries in his lifetime to know how annoying it was when others treated you like you were made of glass while the recovery process was in motion. And yet, his best friend had been almost as bad as his mother.

That resulted in distance, and a tad of  _ healthy _ resentment (that’s what his therapist said). 

Rhodey wondered what his mother would say if she knew he was trekking through the woods with his ‘condition’. She always used that word in reference to him, and he hated it. He hated a lot of things about the new life he had been thrown into, including how much he hated it. 

But his mother wasn’t here to say anything, and neither was Tony - although not for much longer, if Rhodey got to have any say in it.

He sped up, his chest heaving slightly at the exertion of walking uphill. Months of partaking in the barest minimum in terms of exercise had rendered him as unfit as he’d ever been. Nevertheless, he caught up to the hulking figure of Steve Rogers, who was leading the rest of the Avengers along the winding trail through the woods. 

“Rogers,” Rhodey said, and the man glanced towards him. His face was drawn and serious.

“Rhodes,” Steve replied with a small nod.

Tension hung between them, heavy and cloying like a wet towel, and just as dampening. Rhodey turned his face away from the supersoldier and towards the earthy ground. Dirt and leaves clung to the sides of his trainers, and he huffed in annoyance, though whether it was at the prospect of having to clean them later or at the awkwardness between the Avengers, he did not know. 

Screw it. They were here to look for Tony, might as well make amends while he was at it. “Thanks for doing this, Steve, I know you’re risking a lot.”

Steve shrugged. “It’s worth it.”

In those three words, Rhodey saw hope. Hope of forgiveness for both parties, hope of reconnecting, hope of coming back together. If Steve and his merry band of war criminals were willing to risk imprisonment to find Tony, then all was not lost.

_ Unless, of course, they couldn’t find Tony. And if they didn’t find Tony, chances are they wouldn’t find Peter either _ .

But no, that wasn’t a thought he could afford to have. Rhodey wasn’t a fan of all the superstitious hippy stuff, like manifestation and fate and destiny - it gave him the heebie jeebies, frankly - but he felt as though even thinking about anything but the positive potential outcomes of this situation would be detrimental in one way or another.

Finally,  _ finally _ , they reached the campsite. At a different time, in different circumstances, Rhodey might have found the large clearing peaceful, beautiful, even. But the time was now, and the circumstances were dire, so Rhodey didn’t take in the sweet tittering of the birds flitting across the sky, the glistening river that slowly rolled along in the distance, or the dappled shadows that the canopy of trees cast on the grass. 

He had eyes only for the sagging tent that sat innocuously in the clearing. It was the only one pegged in the vicinity, and Rhodey started towards it, his stomach squirming with a mix of excitement and anxiety. Was this Peter and Tony’s tent? It had to be, right? This wasn’t a popular campsite, and it was quite secluded. 

A quick search through the bags in the tent gave Rhodey his answer. He found an MIT sweatshirt, and it could’ve all been one big, fucked up coincidence, except there was a familiar stain on the right sleeve. It was brown, and looked vaguely like the state of West Virginia, and Rhodey immediately recognised it as the unfortunate result of a messy attempt at making chocolate mud cake at three in the morning. 

It wasn’t just any MIT sweatshirt, it was  _ Tony’s _ MIT sweatshirt. The discovery sparked genuine hope in his core. Here was a tangible mark that Tony had been here, and maybe, just maybe, was still here. For all he knew, Tony and Peter had just lost track of time while they were out hiking or something. 

He showed his findings to Steve, who smiled for the first time since they’d met up at the compound when Rhodey explained that it was  _ Tony’s _ sweatshirt. 

They were just about to share what they’d found with the rest of the Avengers when they heard Natasha’s voice yell, crisp and clean in the silence of the clearing. “Hey! Over here! We’ve found something.”

She and Clint had been investigating the perimeter where the emerald grass met the tree line, and Steve jogged over to where they were crouched not far from the bank of the river. Rhodey followed close behind, heart in his throat and MIT sweatshirt still clutched in his grip. 

“What is it?” Sam asked just as Rhodey reached the group. The man had been closer to Clint and Natasha, and had gotten there first.

Clint just pointed at the dirt at their feet. It was marked with footprints and strange imprints that pressed the grains into a seemingly incomprehensible array of mountains and dips, though Natasha was crouched over them and staring so intently that Rhodey wondered if she might be having a telepathic conversation with dirt.

Dark splatters on the ground caught his eye, and he looked closer at it. “Is that..?”

“Blood?” Natasha finished for him, her mouth set into a grim line. “Yep, and there’s a trail of it going into the trees, that way.” 

Rhodey could see more drops of blood, brown and crusted, on various surfaces in the direction she had pointed, and he shuddered. “Well, Peter and Tony were definitely here. This is Tony’s,” he said, lifting the MIT sweatshirt. Everyone’s eyes darted to it, and he sighed heavily. “My guess is that now they’re on the other end of that blood trail.”

“I have to agree with you,” Steve intoned, and his voice was as grim as Natasha’s face. 

They set out into the forest. Natasha and Clint led the way this time, keeping a careful eye on the blood which was both their ticket to finding Peter and Tony, and the cause of their current despair. There was no way a trail of days-old blood in a fucking forest could possibly mean anything good. 

No, there was going to be something horrifying at the end of all of this, and Rhodey was dreading it. 

He was dreading the likelihood of the blood coming from Peter or Tony, or perhaps both.

He was dreading the possibility of having to carry his best friend’s body back to the man’s fiancé. 

They followed that damn blood trail for what felt like hours. With each step, Rhodey wondered if the next one would bring him within sight of Tony. With each step, Rhodey wondered if Tony was even alive.

His legs were shaky. He hadn’t walked this far since before he broke his spine, and every time he placed his foot down on the ground his knees threatened to buckle. His leg braces chafed uncomfortably in the places they pressed close to his skin, but he did not slow, nor did he stop. He was determined to get to the end, no matter what lay there in wait.

Despite Clint’s keen eye (hawk eye, if you will), and Natasha’s impeccable tracking skills, they lost the trail a few times. Not once, but twice, did the trail of blood leave the ground and ascend into the trees. The second time that happened, there was a disturbing amount of the dried, flaky substance. Whoever had lost that much blood was not in good health - they all agreed on that, and so it was with more urgency that they trudged onwards.

The droplets of blood grew further apart, and Natasha said it was because whoever they came from had started moving faster, most likely sprinting, actually. Her brow was furrowed when she said it, as if the notion confused her, and Rhodey understood. 

If it were a normal person, they shouldn’t have been able to run, let alone walk, with the amount of blood they’d lost. The thing was, Rhodey was pretty sure it wasn’t a normal person. 

He was no idiot. He knew Spider-Man was really young - he’d known since the kid referred to  _ The Empire Strikes Back _ as a “really old movie”. He also knew that Tony had been the one to recruit him. Though he may have maintained his distance from his best friend, he’d certainly met Peter, and  _ heard _ about Peter, because it was basically all Tony talked about in the rambling voicemails he left when Rhodey couldn’t bring himself to answer the phone. 

The timeline matched up, and Rhodey had known Tony long enough to see past the flimsy lie of, “he’s my intern.”

That kid was Spider-Man, and the fact that he was enhanced made Rhodey only slightly less worried about the fact that he was dripping blood all over the place.

The worry grew beyond reasonable bounds when the blood trail disappeared under a pile of rocks - the unfortunate result of a cave-in, he was pretty sure. They stood at the edge of the boulders, staring at it in silence as though that would somehow allow them to develop telekinetic powers and move the rocks, though they were all afraid of what lay beneath.

Rhodey didn’t consider himself a genius, and as he calculated the probability of both Peter and Tony surviving a cave-in, he prayed his numbers were wrong. 

He stared at the rocks piled in front of him, grey and unmoving. Would they find the bodies of his best friend and his best friend’s kid when they dug through all of the boulders? Had Rhodey really followed a trail of blood, only to find them crushed under unyielding stone? What a terrible way to die, alone except for each other, as every bone in their bodies were shattered and the very breath forced from their lungs. 

He shook his head as his chest spasmed. That was not something he wanted to think about.

“Damn, I cannot think of a time where Wanda would be more useful,” Clint joked half-heartedly, but it landed heavy like a stone in the silence of their little assembly.

“It’s possible they’re still alive,” Steve said, though it sounded like he didn’t even believe himself. “Tony’s survived worse.”

“The least we can do is recover their bodies.” Natasha whispered, and though her words were soft Rhodey physically stumbled as they reached his ears. 

“They’re still alive,” Rhodey uttered, and his words were not soft. Ignorant denial and foolish hope made them hard and pointed, and Natasha fell silent, though her gaze was pitying.

Rhodey hated it.

“If they’re still alive, then we better get digging,” Sam said, resting a hand on Rhodey’s shoulder and offering him a kind nod. Sometimes, Rhodey forgot Sam was a trained counsellor, but it became evident in the determined way he got to shifting the rocks.

Sam was right. If Peter and Tony were still alive, then Rhodey better get digging.

~~~

It was nice, the quiet.

Tony lay on the unyielding stone of the cave floor and stared at Peter’s ghostly, paper-thin face and allowed himself to truly relish in the freedom of it. He didn’t think he’d ever truly appreciated how liberating it could be. After a life of filling silences with his own profusion of words, sometimes witty, sometimes hilarious, sometimes borderline illiterate, after spending decades struggling with every part of his being to fill the void that came with silence, apparently all that had been needed was a pesky little cave-in for him to finally make peace with the beauty of hearing nothing at all _. _

It was funny how things could change.

Five days ago, he’d hated the quiet. Despised it. It had been a source of annoyance even before the cave-in, and after becoming entrapped in nothing  _ but  _ silence, after watching as Peter fell unconscious and didn’t utter another word, Tony had become positively terrified of it. Maybe that was why he’d rambled on for days on end, falling back on his need to fill the void, the need that he’d had his whole life. Never mind that the words he’d spoken couldn’t have sounded more deranged. He had filled the silence, and that was all that mattered.

Until, several hours ago, or maybe only several minutes, Tony had realised that nothing mattered anymore.

It was around that time that he and the quiet had become best friends.

And so he lay there as the hours passed by, or maybe only minutes, wallowing in the quiet, thinking nothing, feeling nothing. Just him and the quiet. It had surrounded him for so many minutes or hours that he now virtually embodied it, and he wasn’t at all sure that ‘quiet’ was something that even existed, or rather just a vague idea, a construct of his own mind. It would be rather nice to die like this. Just him and the quiet. At least the last thing he would see would be the kid’s face. That had to count for something.

Just him, Peter, and the quiet.

It was nice, the quiet.

It was -

_ Thud. _

-not quiet?

Tony moved for the first time in hours, or minutes, or even seconds, God only knew at this point. Regardless, he moved after a period of prolonged stillness, a sudden involuntary jerk, because surely he had not heard what he thought he’d just heard. Surely, just when he’d come to terms with the quiet, just when he’d started to think it maybe wasn’t so bad, that maybe he could die like this, surely the world wouldn’t be so cruel as to give him things like hope. Tony didn’t want hope. It was a toxic substance, eating away at you like a parasite, making you vulnerable, opening a void inside you for nice things to fall into. But then the nice things didn’t come, and it was just you and the quiet, and yeah, he must have imagined it, must have constructed the thudding noise, because it was just him, Peter and the quiet again, and that was how it was going to be until he died -

_ Thud. _

No. He wasn’t going to react. Wasn’t going to listen, wasn’t going to fall for it. This was just some cruel construct of the dark recesses of his own mind. Tony really didn’t know why his subconscious felt the need to be so relentlessly unforgiving; his  _ conscious  _ mind had made peace with dying in the quiet long ago, in those endless hours and minutes and seconds, but of course his subconscious had other ideas, had decided that now would be a great time to give him false hope. Despite Tony not even caring if he lived or died anymore. Despite him not needing, not  _ wanting,  _ to be given anything but relief.

_ Thud. _

“Stop it,” Tony groaned, he actually groaned out loud, and then immediately wanted to kick himself for doing so. He wasn’t supposed to be talking. He had given up on such petty things  _ hoursminutesseconds _ ago, once he’d realised that it had made absolutely no fucking difference to the nature his predicament. That was when he’d stopped thinking of it as a predicament. That was when he’d completely dissolved into the quiet.

_ Thud. Thud. Thud. _

Dear lord, his subconscious really was a persistent bitch, wasn’t she?

“And I just misgendered my subconscious. Good job, Tony.”

He was talking to himself. Jesus, he was talking to himself. Why did he have to start that again? Everything was so much easier if he just sank back into the -

_ Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud thud. Thud thud thud. _

“I swear to God-” Grimacing, Tony rolled over, buried his face into the stone floor. “Look, I’m sorry I misgendered you. I’m a man, you’re me, so you’re a man, it makes sense, but this place does things to the mind, okay? A slip of the tongue - slip of the  _ mind  _ \- whatever, same thing. Just please, shut the fuck up and let me be. Thank you.”

_ This is not your subconscious. _

Tony rolled back over, resumed his mindless staring into Peter’s dull, slack face. He clenched his jaw and kept his eyes fixedly on the kid and tried so hard to make everything go back to how it was. Just him, the kid, and the quiet. A peaceful life that would seamlessly meld into a peaceful death-

_ Thud. Thud thud thud thud thud. _

“Stop it,” Tony whispered. “I don’t want hope, okay? Please stop it.”

_ This isn’t you, you moron. This is something else. _

He stared determinedly at Peter and tried to ignore the -

_ Thud thud thud thud- _

It wasn’t real, it wasn’t real, it wasn’t anything but-

_ Thudthudthudthudthud- _

Just him and the quiet-

_ Tony Stark, this is real and you know it. _

_ Thud. Thud. Thud. _

“ _ Tony! Tony? Tony, if you can hear us, it’s Steve!” _

_ “Tony! Tony? If you’re there, if you can hear us, it’s Steve Rogers!” _

_ “Peter? Tony? We’re coming for you! It’s Steve!” _

_ “We’re coming for you!” _

_ “We’re coming for you!” _

“WE’RE COMING FOR YOU!”

And suddenly, it was like everything had been resolved into normal motion. Like before, he’d been wading through a thick pool of honey, his thoughts slowed, his movements delayed, his mind melding into nothing, all barriers between the real and the surreal blurred. But now, the honey was gone, the quiet was gone, everything was gone but everything was back, and through it all, Tony could only think one thing. One blindingly obvious thing. 

His subconscious would  _ never  _ sink so low as to imagine a Steve Rogers.

“Steve,” he tried to yell, but it came out as nothing more than a hoarse whisper. He staggered to his feet, whirled about, scanning every corner of the cave. Nothing. Nothing but darkness and the faint shaft of light illuminating Peter’s face and-

_ Another tiny shaft of light, straight ahead. _

“Oh my God,” he said. “This is real. It’s fucking real.”

_ I told you, didn’t I? _

“Steve!” Tony yelled, his voice stronger now, coming alive, sounding more like the vigorous set of vocal chords he used to use so incessantly. “I can hear you! This better be a rescue, Rogers, or else I’m suing your-”

He broke off, realising that it was useless. They were too far away, and no matter how much stronger Tony suddenly felt, he couldn’t ignore the fact that he hadn’t eaten in days. There was just no way his voice was going to carry with its usual radiance in such a weakened state.

Tony turned back, swivelling on the spot to stare down at Peter. After spending so much time with nothing but the kid’s motionless body for moral support, it felt wrong to leave him. Like he was leaving a part of himself. But the shaft of light was still there, and the hope had returned in all of its dangerous glory, and Tony knew that if he didn’t seize this moment now, it could very well be too late.

“I’m coming back for you, kid,” Tony whispered, and then he turned away. With what felt like a Herculean effort, Tony started forwards, stumbling this way and that, tripping over his own two feet again and again in his half-blind desperation to get to that second shaft of light. He hadn’t moved this much in days, and he could feel his body seizing and cramping up in protest, the urge to just collapse on the floor and let the exhaustion consume him almost  _ overwhelming.  _ But the hope fuelled him, surged him onwards, and finally, after what felt like an eternity, Tony reached the end of the tunnel.

He stopped for only a few dazed milliseconds, taking in the dimly-lit sight before him. The solid pile of rocks and boulders from where the cave had collapsed, blocking their exit. And, right in the thick of it all, a small hole in this seemingly impenetrable wall, a glorious gap the size of a basketball.

Tony dashed over to it, barely pausing to relish in the feeling of sunlight and fresh air and all the things he’d forgotten existed. “Rogers?  _ Steve?” _

“Oh my God, Tony!”

Voices were suddenly surrounding him, and Tony could hardly breathe as they all dashed over to him, not just Steve, but Natasha, Clint, Sam,  _ Rhodey.  _ They were all talking at once, asking urgent questions; was he okay, was he hurt, where was Peter, were they in danger? Tony stood there and listened. He had never, not once in his entire mess of an existence, felt pure relief such as unbearably, overwhelmingly debilitating, and several more minutes passed before Tony could even speak at all.

“Peter,” he finally managed to say, and that shut all of them up. A cold, weighted silence fell over the group, thick with apprehension, and Tony knew what their next question would be, could practically see the burning desire to ask it in their eyes, but all of them hesitated.

Finally, it was Rhodey who summoned the courage.

“He’s not -” He hesitated, looking Tony straight in the eye. “Tony, Peter’s not - is he alive?”

“Alive?” Tony repeated, his voice hollow. “Undetermined.”

“What do you mean?” Natasha asked, her voice urgent.

“Well, last time I checked, he was still breathing, but that could have been five minutes ago, or it could have been five hours ago. I really couldn’t tell you. I’ve been -” He broke off, unable to explain it to them, and finding that he had no particular desire to do so anyway. There really weren’t words to describe the inner intricacies of a man losing his mind. But there  _ was  _ such a thing called passing time, and Tony was acutely aware that with every moment he stood here, talking to the rest of them, Peter lay alone in the depths of the cave, drifting further and further away.

“He’s in a bad way,” Tony started again, talking faster now. “He’s unconscious, has been for days. He’s lost a fucking shit load of blood-”

“We know,” Sam interrupted. “We followed the trail of it. Where is he?”

“In here, with me,” Tony said. “At the end of the tunnel. You need to get him out of there as soon as possible. I don’t know how much longer -”

But for the second time, he stopped himself. This time, not because he didn’t have the words, but because he absolutely refused to say them out loud. If Peter died now, right after Tony had been led to believe that there might be a chance, after all - it would literally kill him. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, outwardly acknowledge that there was a chance of this happening. Not now.

“Okay,” Steve spoke up, understanding in his eyes, his jaw set in a grim line of determination. “We’ll get to him. The problem is, Tony, we can’t shift much more of this rock without causing a second cave-in. We considered getting Pepper or Happy to come back with your suit so we could just blast the rock out of the way, but, once again, there’s the problem of re-collapsing the cave. We’ve had to do the whole thing manually, which took a lot more time.”

“We can make the hole bigger than this,” Clint put in, “but not much. It’s going to be a tight manoeuvre getting you guys out of there.”

“Okay,” Tony said, nodding determinedly. “I’ll go back and stay with the kid. You guys just focus on making a hole big enough to fit us through. I don’t care if we have to do some weird contortionist shit to get out of here, just so long as we  _ get out of here.” _

He made eye contact with Steve, and Tony felt a mutual understanding pass between them, a sort of unspoken agreement. The Accords hadn’t happened. Germany hadn’t happened. The whole fucking thing hadn’t happened. Right here, right now, they were going to pretend like everything was back to normal.

And they were going to save Peter.

Tony turned away, and started his disoriented way back to the end of the tunnel. His ears were ringing and his throat was full of pounding heart and it was nothing but pure, raw adrenaline that kept him upright, kept him moving. The tunnel seemed to stretch on forever as he staggered drunkenly through the unyielding darkness, but eventually, he stumbled across the dim shaft of light, and knew that he’d made it.

“Peter,” Tony choked out, dropping to his knees and grabbing the kid by the shoulders. For one terrifying, heart-stopping moment, Tony was sure that he was too late, that he’d taken too long, that the kid was already gone. But then he caught sight of the tremulous rising and falling of Peter’s chest, and the hope remained strong and steady and burning in his chest, accompanied by a savage determination that almost entirely blocked out the panic he should have been feeling.

Peter was alive. He hadn’t died yet. And Tony wasn’t going to lose it while the kid was still breathing. While there was still a  _ chance. _

Unfortunately, the chance was proving to be harder and harder to grasp. Whilst Peter was far from a heavy weight, he was no pixie either, and under current circumstances, Tony felt about as strong as a light breeze. In fact, he seriously doubted his ability to remain standing if a light breeze were to knock into him. He bent down, hooked his arms awkwardly underneath Peter, and slowly and painfully tried to lift him up.

And then promptly stumbled to the floor, crumpling against the weight he’d just tried to lift.

This was not right. Something was terribly wrong about this. Peter wasn’t light, but he wasn’t the  _ weight of a fucking boulder. _

And then, he remembered.

“Shit,” Tony breathed, and he dropped to his knees once more. He felt around blindly in the dark, needing to physically touch it to believe it, and then his hands landed on the boulder and his worst nightmares were confirmed. The boulder, concealed in the darkness, trapping Peter’s left leg underneath it. How could he have forgotten the goddamned boulder?

Tony buried his face in his hands, squeezing his eyes tightly shut and taking deep, steadying breaths as he fought through the urge to pass out. God, he was in bad shape. He couldn’t think, he could barely function. He’d consumed nothing but drops of water for days and he was  _ feeling it.  _ If this was the Hunger Games, Tony would have died long ago.

And then Tony looked down, saw the dying kid on the floor of the cave, and forced himself to stand. Forced himself to turn away from Peter for a second time, to leave him behind a second time. He staggered back along the length of the cave again, barely breathing. By the time he reached the end, the hole had widened significantly. Tony was relatively confident that Peter could have fit through it, if he wasn’t currently dying under a piece of immovable rock.

“Tony,” Steve said, a note of relief in his voice when he saw Tony’s face appear in the gap. The relief vanished instantly as he registered that Tony was alone. “Wait, where’s Peter?”

“I’m such a fucking idiot,” Tony panted, struggling to draw breath. “I forgot. I literally forgot. How could I forget about it?”

“Whoa, breathe,” said another voice, and it was Rhodey, coming forwards and fixating Tony with a look of genuine concern. It felt wrong, having Rhodey concerned about him, looking at him like that. Tony realised he couldn’t remember the last time Rhodey had sought out his gaze. 

“Calm down,” Rhodey continued. “Deep breaths. What’s the problem?”

“Peter,” Tony got out. “When the cave collapsed, it went back pretty deep, caused some of the rocks back there to fall out of place. And Peter, well - his leg is kind of stuck. Under a boulder. A fucking heavy boulder and I can’t move it and he hates tight spaces and -”

“Tony, it’s okay,” Steve cut in. “We’ll go in there with you and move it off Peter.”

“Cap,” Tony said, voice on edge, “did you miss the part where I said it was fucking  _ heavy?” _

“Tony,” Natasha replied, an eyebrow raised, “did  _ you  _ miss the part where he got injected with super soldier serum?” 

The relief rushed up again, raw and all-consuming, and it was so great that Tony didn’t even feel any appropriate abashment at being proven wrong.

“Thank god you were born a shortie, Rogers,” he muttered. “Okay. Get in here and help me get my kid out.”

They each clambered through with no small degree of awkwardness, first Steve, then Natasha, Clint, Rhodey and Sam. They followed Tony down the tunnel as the darkness closed around them, and Tony fought harder than ever to keep moving forwards, the urge to succumb to the pull of his subconscious almost overwhelming. Rhodey apparently could sense his failing strength through the darkness, because he put one single supporting hand on Tony’s shoulder, and said nothing else, just left it there as they walked (or staggered, in Tony’s case). It didn’t do much to ward off the threat of passing out, but it somehow helped Tony, kept him grounded and aware.

They finally came to a stop at the shaft of light illuminating Peter’s upper body. Tony felt every single one of his companions draw in a sharp, collective breath as they each caught sight of the ugly knife jutting out of his stomach, and the pool of dried blood that surrounded it.

“My God,” Sam muttered.

“He’s still breathing,” Clint noted, and Tony saw, with a thrill of panic, that the rise and fall of Peter’s chest was at an all-time low. 

“We need to get him to the Compound,” Steve said, his resolve stronger than ever, although there was a slight quiver to his voice that Tony didn’t miss. “Where’s this boulder, Tony?”

“On his left leg,” Tony said darkly. “Just reach out until you feel it. It’s fucking massive. Shouldn’t be hard to find.”

He heard Steve shuffling around in the darkness, and a few seconds later the man grunted. “Jesus. It’s no piece of cake.”

“Rogers, I swear, if you’re about to tell me you can’t lift it-”

But before he could even finish his sentence, Tony heard the unmistakable sound of Steve straining, and he knew, even without being able to see what was going on, that Steve was somehow, miraculously, lifting the boulder. After about a minute had passed, there was a resounding  _ thump  _ that could only mean the boulder had been safely deposited away from Peter’s leg.

Well, that serum had been good for something, at least.

“Okay,” Steve grunted, panting slightly. “It’s off. Let’s get him out of here.”

He bent down, picked Peter up in his arms like he was made of cotton candy, and led the way back down the tunnel. He’d swept in like a blond, bearded (because yeah, Tony may be half-starved but he still had eyes. He’d seen the fucking beard) Superman, and now he was sweeping back out with Tony’s kid in his arms.

Tony followed, feeling useless, and through the total exhaustion and blinding concern for Peter’s survival, he was able to grudgingly acknowledge that having Steve Rogers around could kind of come in handy every now and then. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's that. Hope you guys enjoyed the introduction of a tiny ray of hope in what has so far been a pretty depressing load of angst. Whether Peter makes it out alive, you'll just have to wait and see...  
> Thanks for reading :)


	8. The Night at the Museum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Meekly poke our heads out from behind a rock*   
> Hey, how y'all doin'?   
> We're so sorry about the delay. I know we promised it like a week or two ago, but life gets in the way, so I'll stop blabbering now and just get on with it :D

They walked for what felt like days.

Tony knew, realistically, that this wasn’t the case. He’d followed the trail of blood himself. He’d found Peter up the tree, and continued running with the kid. He knew from the amount of distance they’d covered, from the time he’d spent running and walking collectively, that it couldn’t have taken more than an hour to get from the campsite to the cave. But as they walked back from it now, it felt like days, even years, passed with every step he took.

It felt almost surreal to be walking back along this path, trekking through the already-parted undergrowth, a hallmark of where they’d desperately crashed through the thickness as Veronica’s men gave chase. He tried not to look at the blood trail too much, kept his eyes firmly fixed on the back of Steve’s head. Looking at the blood led to frantically calculating how much Peter had lost, and that was probably the only maths problem that Tony had ever found himself wanting to cry over.

It was a somber procession. Steve, in the lead, carrying Peter’s limp and ghostly pale form in his arms. Tony came in second, barely aware of where his feet were carrying him. Behind him, Natasha and Clint walked side by side, their footsteps quiet and their breathing ragged. Rhodey followed close behind, and Sam brought up the rear.

No one spoke, and the silence somehow was deafening.

Tony was miles away. His mind kept running over the same few agonising cycles: what could he have done differently? How could he have prevented it? Once dwelling on his past errors became too painful - he had a list of them long enough to fill the fucking Bible at this point - he forced himself to instead turn to thoughts of the future. Would they get back in time? Would someone be around to heal Peter? Would Peter even  _ need  _ healing by that point, or would they be too-

It was at this point that he typically realised thinking of the future was even more painful than the past, and so he reverted back to darkly obsessing over the Long List of Tony Stark’s Majorly Noteworthy Fuck-Ups. 

_ If we ever get out of this mess, you could write a pretty kick-ass autobiography. _

Tony supposed that time must have been passing to some degree, because after he had gone through the stupid never-ending loops in his head at least six thousand times over, they finally, finally arrived at the campsite. Tony’s eyes were drawn to the lone tent sitting erect in the middle of the clearing, and he remembered, numbly, the day Peter and he had gotten here, how they’d spent hours bent over the instructions, struggling to get that damn thing in the air. An established genius and a high-school prodigy, unable to figure out how to set up a fucking family tent. 

The tent stood there now, whistling slightly in the breeze, a ghostly reminder of what the camping trip was supposed to have been. No, more than a reminder. An accusation.

_ Look what was meant to happen. Look what happened instead. _

Tony looked away.

“How much further to the Quinjet?” he asked, dragging his eyes back to a harmless oak tree.

“Not far,” Steve said.

It did nothing to ease his anxiety.  _ Not far  _ could mean five minutes, or twenty. It could mean thirty minutes, or forty-five.  _ Not far _ meant nothing but an undetermined amount of time in which Tony could barely breathe and the kid probably couldn’t, either, and breathe _.  _ Breathe.  _ Fuck.  _ Was Peter still breathing?   


“Rogers,” Tony spoke up, unable to control the trembling in his voice, “is he-”

“He’s still going,” came the response.

Tony felt the tension ease in his shoulders by a fractional amount.

They continued on, and Tony couldn’t shake the feeling that it was too late, Peter was already gone, and this was nothing but some sick fucking replication of a funeral march. He resisted the urge to ask Steve if the kid was still breathing about three hundred and sixty-two more times. Half the time, he wasn’t even sure if he wanted to hear the answer.

Just when he was about to criticise Rogers’ choice of the phrase  _ not far,  _ which had obviously been entirely too optimistic given the terrifying and immeasurable amount of time that had passed, he caught sight of the Quinjet, sitting almost idly in the middle of an otherwise deserted parking lot. Tony let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, and barely suppressed the overwhelming compulsion to drop everything, grab Peter and sprint to the Quinjet. In fact, he was fairly sure he would have done exactly this if he’d actually possessed the energy to do so. The walk, he realised with a dull kind of interest, had entirely sapped him of whatever miraculous adrenaline-fuelled energy he’d managed to conjure up, leaving him totally dead on his feet. Still, he pushed onwards. He couldn’t stop now. Not when they were  _ so fucking close to saving the kid- _

“Tony! Oh my God!”

Tony’s head snapped up, and suddenly Pepper Potts was running towards him, sprinting like her life depended on it, and Tony felt something cold and painful dissolve within him at the sight of her. She came to a stop in front of him, silent tears streaking down her face, and pulled him into a tight, desperate hug, and he all but collapsed into her arms.

“You’re alive,” she whispered, her voice tight and her arms tighter, and Tony closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of  _ her,  _ the wonderful scent of Pepper Potts. A scent he’d almost forgotten existed. A scent he hadn’t expected to ever breathe in again.

“Yes I am,” he mumbled. “Didn’t think you’d be able to get rid of me that easily, did you?”

She laughed into his ear, a laugh that was shaky and relieved and beautiful all at once, and it helped him. Made him feel a little lighter, a little stronger. A little less numb. He managed to get his feet properly under him, and he straightened.

“Peter - he’s not good, Pep,” he said, voice barely above a whisper.

She looked around as though noticing the others for the first time, and her anxious eyes fell on the crumpled figure in Steve’s arms.

“My God, Tony, is he-” Her voice died somewhere in her throat, and she looked back at Tony, her eyes wide, the unfinished question reflected in her pale features.

“For now,” Tony said, and felt a little piece of him die at having to say these words. “We need to get him back to-”

“The Compound, yes, of course.” It was like something suddenly had snapped into life within her, like she’d flicked an “on-switch” within her brain, and Tony recognised that shift, knew it like the back of his hand. She stood up a little straighter, her jaw set in a line of grim determination, and her eyes hardened. Focused.

“Come on,” she said. “Happy’s already starting up the jet.”

They filed into the Quinjet. Clipped words were exchanged, brief nods of thanks. Tony entered the Quinjet last, and as the door lifted shut behind him, he heard Happy’s voice.

“Tony? Oh, thank God.”

Tony turned, and saw his friend looking round at him from the control panel, his face pale but his eyes relieved. It took Tony a few painful seconds to figure out how to arrange his face into something that vaguely resembled a smile in response. The muscles in his face felt stiff, unnatural, protesting at the movement. Like it wasn’t something he could physically do anymore.

“What about Peter?” came Happy’s voice again, stiffer this time. Tony didn’t want to say the words again, didn’t want to have to say one more fucking time that Peter was close to dying, but he was spared from having to do so by Steve. The man walked slowly forwards and deposited Peter onto the emergency operating table in the corner of the Quinjet, Natasha, Clint, Sam and Rhodey close behind.

“Fuck,” Happy breathed, his eyes fixated on Peter’s bloodied clothes, on the knife in his stomach. “He’s not-”

Tony tried to repeat what he’d told Pepper, tried to get the words out, to reassure his friend that Peter was, in fact, not dead yet, but something held him back. Maybe it was the knowledge that those very words could be rendered untrue at any moment.

_ And maybe you should stop thinking thoughts like that, before you lose your fucking mind. _

“He’s alive,” Natasha spoke up. “But he’s lost a severe amount of blood. He needs medical attention as soon as we get back.”

“I’ll call Helen,” Pepper said, “tell her what’s happened, and to meet us at the Compound. In the meantime, you guys keep an eye on him. Happy, get us out of here.”

Tony watched numbly, seeing but hardly processing, as his friends broke into a flurry of action around him. Pepper started dialling, Nat and Clint revved the engines, and the rest of them crowded anxiously around Peter as the quinjet lifted into the air. Tony just stood there, his eyes on Peter’s face, lost in himself. What he wouldn’t give for those eyes to open, right now. What he wouldn’t give to see the kid’s eyes light up in that way of his, see him bounce up off the table, playing the whole thing off as a mild annoyance…

“You don’t look too good,” said a quiet voice from beside him.

It took several seconds for Tony to register the words. He turned his head robotically, almost reluctantly, and found Rhodey standing next to him, his brow creased and his eyes full of concern.

“I’m fine,” Tony mumbled.

“Tony, you’re even pastier than usual, and you can barely stand up straight,” Rhodey said abruptly. “Let’s drop the pretences, alright? You’re two seconds away from collapsing. How long has it been since you last ate?”

“I dunno,” Tony said, and maybe he was only imagining it, or maybe it was the result of Rhodey bringing his attention to it, but he suddenly noticed that his voice sounded all wrong. All faint and wobbly, like it was barely there. Tony Stark wasn’t supposed to sound like that. 

“Since before the cave collapsed,” he continued, in that same faint, wrong voice.

“Too long, then,” Rhodey said. “Sit down, alright? I’ll get you some food.”

Tony went to protest, but found that he was too exhausted to do so. The walk had taken everything out of him. Actually, scratch that, the last however-many-fucking-days had taken everything out of him, but the walk had been the final straw. He slid down against the wall and stared into space as what remained of his vague, coherent thoughts turned back to the familiar pattern of thinking about Peter, wanting to do something to help the kid, and knowing that he couldn’t. So he sat there and worried, only half-aware that he even was worrying, until Rhodey returned, carrying a small bottle of water and a bag of raisins.

“Sam said you should start with something small and easy to digest,” Rhodey said, and he dropped to the floor beside Tony. “He seems to have had some personal experience in this area, so I decided to do the painful favour of listening to him.”

“Hmm,” Tony said vaguely. “How’s your pride?”

“Wounded. But if it saves your life, then hey, my pride can take a few hits.”

Tony let out a short, mirthless laugh. It hurt. “I’m not gonna die, Rhodey. If you wanna stress over anyone, it should be the kid.”

“Peter is young, and cool, and has about five other people stressing over him. I figured someone had to do the less-glorified job of playing nurse to the old man who’s past his use-by date. So here I am, being honourable.”

Tony laughed again, and this time it was slightly less mirthless. He let his head fall against the rumbling wall of the Quinjet.

“But seriously,” Rhodey said, his brow creasing, “you’re scaring me, Tony. You’re not being loud or arrogant or obnoxious and that’s a worry. So do a poor nursemaid a favour, eat the damn raisins, will you?”

“I hate you,” Tony mumbled, and he took a handful of raisins and shoved them into his mouth.

They tasted like heaven on Earth.

~~~

He became aware of things in disjointed flashes, fragments of the world erupting into life around him. Light. Voices. Footsteps. Shouts. Shouts of worry. Shouts of  _ panic.  _

Tony sat bolt upright, and the world came into alarming focus, and he swore.

“Hey, take it easy,” said a voice from beside him. Tony whirled, his heart pounding. Rhodey.

“Fuck,” Tony said. “Fuck, shit, holy fuck. I fell  _ asleep.  _ Peter was dying on a table and I fell fucking asleep. Why the  _ hell  _ did you let me fall asleep?”

“We had an hour to kill,” Rhodey said, his voice resolutely calm, the polar opposite of what Tony was feeling. “Whether you were asleep or awake in that time wasn’t going to change anything. And you needed the rest.”

“I needed to stay awake and watch  _ Peter,”  _ Tony practically snarled, and he shoved the empty bag and bottle away from him and staggered to his feet. He stumbled around drunkenly, a surge of dizziness exploding over him, and logic probably dictated that he should have done this slowly, carefully, or even better, just stayed sitting down entirely, but Tony didn’t have time for irrelevant concepts like logic. He turned again, stumbled some more.

“Careful, Tony,” Rhodey said, and he stood up next to Tony, laid a steadying hand on his elbow.

“Where the fuck is he?” Tony got out, his eyes flickering around the empty quinjet.

“We just arrived at the Compound. The others have taken him inside. Helen should be meeting them there.”

Tony shook off Rhodey’s hand, ignored his objections, ignored his flurry of warnings to be careful. He whirled about until he pinpointed a big beam of light that surely was the exit to the Quinjet, and ran blindly towards it. A second later, he was in bright, burning sunlight.

It was hot and sticky and Tony was slow and disoriented and his head was throbbing in chorus with every teetering step that he took. He barely noticed. He pushed himself forwards, his limbs clunky and stiff with every step, and barrelled through the main doors of the Compound. His vision was tunnelling, his breathing hitched, and his heart beat in erratic symphony with the one, single coherent thought that reverberated around his brain.

_ Please be alive. Please be alive. Please be alive. _

He burst into the left wing of the building, lurched down the corridor, heard voices in a door to his left. The Med Bay. He all but threw himself inside.

“Where is he?” he gasped, doubling over, the world spinning. “Where’s my kid?” 

All at once, people rushed to him. Faces swarmed in and out of his focus - Steve, Natasha, Clint, Sam. Steve came closer.

“Tony-” he started, reaching out, but Tony shoved him away.

“Don’t you fucking dare, Rogers. Don’t. I don’t want to hear it. Not from you. Not from anyone. If my kid is dead, all of you better clear out now, before I start throwing things. You got that? You hear me? I don’t want to hear it, I don’t want to know. I can’t hear it. Please. I fucking can’t.  _ Don’t tell me my kid is fucking dead, please, or I’ll - I’ll -” _

“Tony,” came a voice from behind the others, “Peter isn’t dead.”

The world seemed to slow down as the others moved away, stepping to the side, and Tony blinked past the tears in his eyes and saw, lying on a bed with the sheets stripped away-

“Peter,” he breathed, and he didn’t think, he just moved. Rushed to the bed, knelt beside it, gripped the kid’s cold, clammy hands, watched the rise and fall of his chest. Water was dripping onto the sheets beside Peter and he was vaguely aware that the water was his own tears, and he didn’t care, just squeezed the kid’s hands even tighter. Peter was alive. He was alright. Everything was okay.

It took several more minutes of Tony kneeling there, holding Peter’s cold hands, to even notice.

Peter wasn’t dead. He was breathing, he was alive. That was good. That was a start.

But  _ nothing else was even remotely good. _

He was still in the same clothes. The fucking Hello Kitty pyjamas, the ones that had been soaked so thoroughly with blood that they were barely recognisable. His face still shone with sweat. His body remained limp and pale, his eyes resolutely closed. His left leg was still broken and smashed. His whole torso was still stained red, and the knife still jutted out of his stomach-

Tony stood up, whipped around. “What the actual  _ fuck?” _

His eyes fell onto the grave face of Helen Cho.

“Tony, I’m sorry,” she said in that calm, collected voice of hers, watching him carefully. “I’m so sorry. I should have specified. He’s alive, yes, but he only just arrived here seconds ago. Nothing about his condition has changed yet, and if you want him to remain alive, I need to start work immediately.”

Tony swallowed as the world came crashing back down, and everything seemed to erupt into double time once more.

“Yes,” he croaked out. “Please. Do whatever you need to do. Save him. Please.”

She nodded, her eyes hard and resolute and determined, and in that moment, Tony felt the entire weight of the world shift onto the shoulders of Helen Cho.

“Let’s get to work,” she said. “Tony, if you go down to the storage unit, you’ll find Happy and Pepper looking for supplies for me. I’m going to need antiseptic, stitches, bandages, the whole works. Do you want to go-”

“-help them?” Tony finished. “I’ll do anything.”   


He turned on his heel and hurried out of the room as fast as his legs would carry him, dashing down along the corridor to where he knew the storage unit was situated. Despite the stifling panic that still gripped his heart, he felt somehow more focused, as though he had regained a fraction of control over himself. The dizziness and the disorientation and the almost-zero amount of food in his stomach had all been shoved to the side, repressed as a familiar sort of adrenaline took over him. It was the focused kind, the  _ finish-the-mission-or-die-trying  _ kind. It was the same adrenaline that had swamped him time and time again in battle, and now that he had been issued a task, now that he could physically visualise the pathway to saving Peter’s life, the feeling flooded him again, driving him forwards.

_ Just another mission. That’s all this is. You’ve been given your instructions and now you need to finish the mission. _

He realised he had reached the storage unit and quickly barrelled inside, only to run face-first into Pepper and Happy, their arms full of medical supplies.

“Tony,” Pepper sighed with relief. “You’re awake.”

Tony scowled, the reminder that he had literally fallen asleep while Peter was inches from death grating against his bubble of adrenaline, and he opened his mouth to berate her for not waking him up, too, but Happy read the look on his face and beat him to it.

“No time to argue,” he said. “Here, take this-” an armful of bandages were shoved into Tony’s arms - “and let’s go.”

They hurried back along the corridor and turned towards the room where the others were, but found the entryway blocked by Steve. 

“Out of the way, Rogers,” Tony said impatiently. “We’re carrying life-saving cargo here.”

Steve hesitated, his eyes flickering from Pepper, to Happy, before landing on Tony, and Tony didn’t like the look he saw there. Something was going on in there. Something that Helen had deliberately sent Tony away for.

It was at that moment that Tony heard the pained, anguished groans coming from inside the room. Groans that unmistakably belonged to Peter.

“Oh my God, he’s awake,” Tony realised, his heart pumping somewhere in his mouth. And then it hit him. “He’s in  _ pain.  _ Let me through, I need to see what’s going on.”   
He tried to push past Steve, but the man stepped to meet him, blocking his entrance into the room.

“Rogers,” Tony snarled, “get the fuck out of my way.”

Steve paused, biting his lip. “She’s just running a procedure,” he said quietly. “I think it would be best if-”

His words were drowned out by a harsh cry of pain from inside the room.

“What the hell is she doing to him?” Tony growled. 

“Tony,” Steve said, “she’s trying to save his life.” His words were gentle, well-chosen, and would have worked beautifully if Steve had been attempting to calm a crying toddler. At that moment, Tony hated him.

“It sure as hell doesn’t sound like it,” he snapped. “Don’t patronise me, Rogers. Move before I have to make you.” His hand twitched threateningly, and Steve watched the movement, understanding dawning in his eyes. The Iron Man suit was only a floor above them.

Another cry of pain, this one so sharp that it seemed to cut through Tony like a shard of glass, and he couldn’t stand it a moment longer. With as much force as his weakened limbs could muster, he thrust his armful of bandages into Steve’s face, and ducked past the man as Steve stumbled backwards gracelessly. Natasha, Clint and Sam moved towards him, clearly trying to block him from seeing whatever the fuck Helen was doing to Peter, and Tony charged past them, too.

“Helen,” he began, his voice shaking, “what the hell are you-”

His voice died in his throat. He froze.

Peter’s shirt had been removed and his eyes were only half-open, fluttering in and out of total awareness as he groaned incoherently. Helen was bent over his knife wound, which was flowing blood, and for a moment, Tony couldn’t understand why the blood looked so fresh, like it had only just been drawn-

But then he saw the scalpel in Helen’s hand, watched as she used it to cut into the skin around the knife in Peter’s stomach, and Tony was freed of his self-imposed paralysis as a mix of panic and surging rage consumed him. Seeing red, he moved forwards, ready to knock the damn scalpel out of Helen’s hand, but Clint grabbed him, dragged him back.

“Tony,” he panted, voice strained, “this isn’t what it looks like.”

“Oh yeah?” Tony snarled, lurching forwards again, but Sam sprang forwards and helped Clint to hold him back. “You wanna tell me what the fuck this is, then? Wanna explain why she’s literally making that stab wound worse?”

“For God’s sake, she’s not, Tony,” Natasha interrupted loudly, stepping forwards to fixate him with an icy glare. “Can you just stop and think, rationally, for two seconds, please? I know you’re worried about Peter. We all are.”

“Like hell you-”

_ “We all are,”  _ she repeated, cutting across him like he wasn’t even there. “Peter’s Spider-Man, right? Don’t deny it. Rhodey told us during the trip back here, and it’s not hard to guess. Whatever kind of enhancements Peter’s got, one of them messed with his stab wound. The skin healed faster than that of a normal human - regenerated, in a way. It’s started to grow back around the knife, attaching itself to the metal. Helen is trying to remove it, okay? She can’t do anything else until the knife is out of him.”

Tony stood stockstill for a moment, his heart still thudding relentlessly as he struggled to process Natasha’s words. He felt Clint and Sam loosen their holds on him, obviously deciding he wasn’t going to launch an attack on Helen anytime soon, and he shrugged away from them entirely, his eyes on Natasha. “How do you know this?”

“Because I’m a trained medical professional, Tony,” came Helen’s voice from beside Peter, and Tony whipped around to face her. “This sort of skin regrowth would happen with anyone, given enough time, but Peter’s obvious enhanced healing has only exacerbated the process. I’m sorry, but this procedure is necessary.”

Another shattering cry of pain from Peter, and Tony winced. “He’s awake. He’s been unconscious for days. How does he just fucking wake up?”

“I imagine it’s the result of the excruciating pain,” Helen murmured, her voice clipped as she continued to work the scalpel methodically, her movements clinical and controlled. “And he’s not awake, not really. Think of it as a state of half-consciousness, somewhere between total lucidity and being unconscious. I doubt he’ll remember this afterwards.”

“Well, that fixes everything, then,” Tony snarled, his words dripping with sarcasm. “Whatever you’re doing to him is apparently painful enough to pull him out of a goddamn coma. Don’t you have any sedatives, or something?”

“They’re in the storage unit,” Helen responded, and there was definitely an edge to her words now. “You’re welcome to try and find the right dosage if you want.”

“Look, Tony, she had to drop everything to get here in time,” Pepper said quietly, and Tony realised he’d forgotten that she and Happy were even there. “She was in the middle of a conference when we called her. She’s not prepared, she doesn’t have any back-up or assistance apart from us, and what the hell do we know? There wasn’t time to give Peter a sedative. Not when he’s in this state.”

Tony looked at her, a sudden jarring appreciation flooding through him, because somehow Pepper always knew exactly what to do, exactly what to say. He felt himself calm down by a minuscule amount, her words reaching him in a way that the others’ hadn’t.

“Right,” he mumbled, suddenly feeling ashamed of his outburst. “Right, of course. I’m sorry.”

Pepper gave him a small smile which Tony struggled to return, but before he could figure out how to make his muscles work, everyone else parted as Rhodey hurried into the room.

“I’m here,” he gasped. “Sorry, I had to shut down the Quinjet. Engine was being a bitch-”

“The engine’s always a bitch,” Tony said quietly, watching Rhodey with what he hoped was an apology in his eyes, because of course he’d been a total jerk to him, too, back in the Quinjet after he’d woken up. “It wasn’t designed by me, you see. Mistake number one.”

Rhodey seemed to interpret this pathetic excuse for a witty quip as the apology Tony was struggling to convey, and he just nodded, his eyes holding no judgement. “How’s it going?” he asked, stepping forwards.

“I’ve almost detached the skin completely,” Helen said, her features etched into a mask of total concentration as she spoke. “Just one more-” She dug the scalpel in a little harder, and Tony couldn’t control his flinch as Peter groaned again. More blood spilt, more horrifyingly fresh blood, and Tony wanted to rush forwards and knock the scalpel out of her hands, because Peter couldn’t lose any more of the stuff, he couldn’t. He would die. He would genuinely die.

And then Helen was finally, finally, removing the scalpel.

“It’s done,” she breathed, her shoulders loosening as she straightened, and Tony breathed again.

“Now what?” Steve asked from the back of the room, his brow furrowed.

“Now I have to remove the knife,” Helen said, her jaw set.

Tony jerked a little, unable to stop himself, and he saw Steve’s eyes flick towards him, apparently worried that he was going to make another move on Helen. Tony ignored this, kept his eyes firmly fixed on Peter, not trusting himself to speak.

He watched with dread pooling in his stomach as Helen bent down once more over Peter’s limp form and took the black knife in both hands. A beat passed. Tony could feel everyone in the room holding their collective breaths.

And then she began to twist the knife out of him, slowly, methodically, like it was nothing more than a mundane, routine task, and Tony felt bile rise in his throat and he buried down the urge to be sick as the metal blade slowly made its way out of Peter’s stomach. It was long and sharp and covered in blood -  _ fuck,  _ why was there so much blood, there wasn’t supposed to be this much blood - and then the knife was out and the blood was spilling everywhere and pooling fresh over Peter’s torso, and all Tony could think of was the blood in the cave, the blood in the forest, the blood outside the tent, the blood on this table, and that damn maths problem circled back and forth in his head, echoing, yelling, screaming-

“Antiseptic,” Helen ordered, and Pepper rushed forward with a tube and a handful of cotton buds and pressed both into Helen’s outstretched hand. Helen turned and applied it to Peter’s wound, and Tony wanted to scream at her, wanted to tell her that antiseptic was unimportant, that Peter would die if she didn’t do something right here, right  _ now _ . But he knew about bacteria, knew that open wounds plus bacteria led to infection, knew that infections were dangerous, knew that they could travel into the blood, and blood, too much blood, she needed to stop the fucking blood-

“Stitches,” Helen ordered again, and Happy quickly tossed her a small clear bag containing the necessary utensils. Tony stood there, hardly breathing, as Helen took out the needle and thread with steady fingers, and bent down over Peter once more. She started sewing the skin back together, moving the needle and thread quickly with visible skill, and Tony could only continue to eye the steadily growing pool of blood that surrounded the stab wound, glistening bright red against the sterile white sheets of the bed. 

Tony decided he hated the colour red. He thought of the first Iron Man suit, of its brilliant red-and-gold hues, and made a mental note to paint it black.

It seemed to drag on forever. The only sound in the room was Helen’s slightly erratic breathing as she worked, her face back in that mask of total, absolute focus as everyone else watched on. The tension in the room was something you could physically feel. Tony was about five seconds away from snatching the damn needle and thread and doing it himself.

_ Again with these irrational urges. Have some faith in a seven-year medical degree, Stark. _

Tony didn’t know what he’d been expecting - Peter suddenly jolting to life, gasping for air, those damnable brown eyes opening and looking at him as a grin split across his face? Delusional. Closing the wound wouldn’t equal the kid’s miraculous survival. But then Helen had finished, and she was stepping away from Peter, and Tony knew, in that moment, that that was exactly what he had been hoping, because he was staring down at the neat line of stitches that ran across Peter’s lower stomach, and all he could feel was worry.

~~~

It didn’t go away.

Helen gave Peter a blood transfusion and cleaned up the mess and hooked him up to an IV that pumped essential fluids into Peter’s body and still, Tony felt numb with worry. He ate some more raisins, purely because Rhodey stood insistently by his side until he had forced the damned things down his throat. He helped pack everything away, and thanked Helen, and a robot could have seemed more sincere, but Tony was too numb to care. He ignored Pepper’s pleas for him to get some sleep, and instead sat by Peter’s bed and listened to the steady beep of the heart monitor and let the never-ending worry wash over him.

He stayed like that for days.

Until, one day, it evaporated.

~~~

Peter had always loved the sound of rain. On the days he walked home from school in a bruising shower, shoulders scrunched to his chin and hood pulled tightly around his face, he got lost in the pitter patter of raindrops against the fabric of his raincoat. 

When his feet sloshed through puddles of water that had already been sullied by the grime of his city, he revelled in the sound of it. The feeling of seeping coldness in between his toes and the scolding he got from May later on for tracking mud and water into the apartment behind him were a small price to pay to hear it.

He loved the sound of rain.

It was raining when he woke up.

Drops on the window, which was really just a bleary square of light in his squinting vision. He blinked again, and the pieces slowly slotted together in front of him, moving and merging to form a clean white wall interrupted by a single window. Through it he could see a cloudy, gray sky and pummelling sheets of rain.

But he couldn’t hear it. This tugged at something deep in his chest.

And then something else was jumping up and down at the back of his mind, demanding his attention. It was a nagging sense of wrongness, that something wasn’t quite right about the giant expanse of unmarred whiteness that made up his surroundings, and he poked experimentally at the memories.

And then it hit him. The last thing he remembered was darkness. Black, black, black, and Tony’s panicked voice over the rumbling of something big and dangerous and merciless. 

Words.

_ “Peter, what the  _ actual fuck _.” _

_ “Looks like a rock, Mr S’ark.” _

_ “You’re like… my kid, okay? You’re my kid.” _

_ You’re my kid. _

Peter snapped back to reality with all the intensity of a rubber band, stretched taught. It jolted all the tension out of his body, leaving him aching and far too sore in all the wrong places, like he’d been turned inside out. 

His hearing rushed back, and with it came the rain, throwing itself against the window and taking his breath away with the volume. His chest hitched, and it was enough to set him aflame.

Burning. Fire on his skin, in his veins, boiling him from the inside out until it felt like he was exhaling his own evaporated blood cells.

The pain which had been a familiar pressure in his abdomen, an almost comforting presence by the end, was gone now. In its place lay a coiled dragon, spitting molten lava onto his skin with the mindless ferocity of a creature driven mad by suffering.

He groaned, the sound low and animalistic and raw.

He could feel everything. The threads of the sheet below him, the barest brush of air on his skin, the fraying edges of the bandages wrapped around his midsection. He wanted to rip it off, get it all off, just make everything  _ stop _ .

His next breath was a sob, filled with the pain that was burning as hot as an oven inside him and the need to get out, out, and away. Bare toes on the floor, and he cried out at the coldness on his skin. It was fire and ice meeting, the intensity enough to bring him to his knees, and he curled into a ball right there on the ground, the linoleum against his cheek and an arm wrapped around his torso like he’d be able to keep himself together if he just gripped tight enough.

“Kid, kid.”

_ You’re my kid. _

“Peter, open your eyes, kiddo. Look at me.”

_ I need your eyes open, kid, please. _

“Tony,” he gasped out, pushing past the boulder in his throat to stutter out the word. His chest was tight and he didn’t have enough air in his lungs to say it loudly, but it was enough. Mr Stark had heard.

He’d always hear.

“I’m right here, kiddo. Right here. We’re safe now, I promise. Just show me your eyes, Pete, c’mon,” Mr Stark pleaded, and he sounded wrecked. 

“Have you been sleeping, Mr Stark?” Peter asked, still stubbornly refusing to open his eyes again. Perhaps if he kept them closed, he could stay in the bubble he’d created. No more memories of the cave, or pain. Just home, with Mr Stark’s calloused hand in his hair. Keeping his eyes shut tight was safe.

The man snorted. “‘Course not, Pete. You know me. No rest for the wicked.”

“That’s not healthy, Mr Stark, you know better than that.”

“Getting stabbed in the gut isn’t exactly healthy either, Pete,” Mr Stark muttered. “Come to think of it, lying on the floor isn’t exactly great either. Bad for my back, bad for your… everything. Wanna get up now, kid?”

Peter did want to get up. His midsection ached fiercely, and his leg felt oddly heavy, but his muscles were still coiled tightly and he found himself unable to move, frozen on the ground. 

Fuck, he was useless.

“It’s alright, kid. We can sit here for a bit. What about opening your eyes?”   


He had to give up his bubble at some point, right? And so he peeled open his eyelids, squinting against the brightness of the world until his eyes had adjusted enough to seek out Mr Stark’s face. Eye bags that testified to the undetermined amount of time that he’d gone without sleep, a cut on his forehead held together by butterfly bandaids and the indomitable force of the man’s willpower, a bruise under his eye socket, purple and swollen.

But alive. And Peter was alive too. They’d made it out, relatively unscathed if he did say so himself.

“I wouldn’t say  _ unscathed _ , Pete. Might be a little too optimistic there.”

Shit, had he said that out loud?

“Always so negative, Mr Stark.”   


“Not negative, kid,  _ realistic _ . You’ve collected so many injuries you could start your own museum exhibition, though I’ve gotta say, the infected stab wound and shattered leg bones deserve honourable mentions.”

Peter looked down sheepishly. Mr Stark did not sound impressed.

“But seriously, kid. I’m glad you’re okay.”

Peter could feel this conversation veering decidedly towards sappy, and his stomach curdled at the thought. Emotional conversations made him wish a hole would open beneath him and swallow him up so he didn’t have to share any more of the things that were tearing holes inside of him. Disappearing into a void in the crust of the Earth sounded much better than giving a voice to the feelings that had started this whole ordeal in the first place.

It was because of his nightmares that Mr Stark had taken him camping. Without their little foray into the wilderness, the Tarzan wannabes never would have chased them through the woods. The cave never would have happened. 

“I’m sorry, Mr Stark.”   


The man frowned, his forehead scrunching. “What for, Pete? Not telling me about the literal boulder that fell on your leg?”

“No, I stand by that. I’m sorry for getting us into that mess. If it weren’t for my… unhappy dreams, we never would have gone out there.”

“What have I told you about apologising unnecessarily?”   


“Uh, that I shouldn’t?”

“Exactly, which means you should shut up right about now. It’s not your fault my crazy jealous high school nemesis sent a bunch of idiots in camouflage gear after us. If anything, that’s on me.”   


“Wait… what?” Peter was very confused. He didn’t know anything about Mr Stark’s crazy high school nemesis, though he guessed that tended to happen when one spent the majority of a four day period unconscious or delirious from blood loss. Nevertheless, he was missing something. 

Mr Stark seemed to pick up on Peter’s confusion, and he launched into the full story of what had happened in that forest. The pieces started to slot together, and the hazy mess of the past week or so seemed to condense in his mind, the edges clearer and the image as a whole something he could finally understand. 

It was Veronica Marquez’s fault, Mr Stark told him. And yet, guilt still lingered in his chest, a tiny voice screaming, screaming at him for his actions under the shadowed shelter of the trees. Maybe, if he’d done something differently, they’d have gotten out of there faster, or Mr Stark wouldn’t stare at him with a haunted glaze over his dark pupils when the man thought Peter wasn’t looking. 

He could have been better. He  _ should _ have been better. 

He hadn’t been, though. All he’d done was beat some Tarzan wannabe ass, and then wail like a little baby the rest of the time. He’d been useless to Mr Stark in the cave, too wrapped up in the clawing claustrophobia that pushed him back to Homecoming night and pinned him just as effectively as that building had. 

_ Useless _ .

“So, where is she now?” he asked, because Mr Stark hadn’t addressed that seemingly very important point yet, and Peter needed a distraction from the whirlwind in his head.   


“In the wind, I guess. I don’t care. The team is working on it, but I’ve been a little more focused on a certain beat up spiderling.”

Peter smiled sheepishly, before the man’s words actually sunk in. 

“Wait,  _ the team _ ?” he asked, the pitch in his voice rising alongside his excitement. “Oh my god, you mean the Avengers, right? Oh my  _ god _ , Ned and I have been  _ praying _ for this. He’s gonna be so stoked, holy shit!”   


“Calm down, kiddo. Nothing’s set in stone, and there’s still a hell of a lot of awkwardness between us. They just helped me look for you, which essentially means I’m indebted to them forever. They got my kid back to me, can’t exactly kick ‘em out now, can I?”

Peter just grinned from his spot on the floor, and Mr Stark rolled his eyes fondly. “Kid, you wanna get back into bed now? It’d probably be more comfortable.”   


He nodded this time, his muscles feeling looser even as his brain spun in self-deprecating circles. Mr Stark helped him shakily to his feet, or foot, he should say. There was a bright blue cast over his left leg, all the way up to his knee. Mr Stark had already scrawled his name in large, block letters across the middle in black Sharpie, and doodled a little Iron Man right next to it.    


“Thought you’d appreciate the blue. I was gonna go with red, but I think we’ve both seen a bit too much of that for a while, hm?”

Peter’s mind flashed to the sound of Mr Stark’s panicked implorations for Peter to  _ stay awake, keep your eyes open for me, kid, please, please.  _ Calloused hands soaked in blood, dripping down the man’s wrists in thick, spiralling trails. Red, red, red, splattered on the ground, glinting on the blade of a knife, hot against Peter’s skin.

Yes, he’d seen quite enough of red for a while. 

He clambered back into his hospital bed, and stared dejectedly at the papery thin hospital gown covering all his unmentionables. “You didn’t have anything else on hand? What about my Hello Kitty PJ’s? It’s a tradition for me to wear them in the Med Bay.”   


“Helen still needs uninhibited access to all your ouchies, kid. And as for your Hello Kitty PJ’s, I have only bad news.”   


Peter sagged; he loved those pajamas. “Why, what happened to them?”

“You got stabbed while wearing them, kid, remember? They’re a whole new colour now, and I don’t think using your own blood to dye your clothes is very trendy at the moment. Pepper tried to wash them, but it was useless.”   


Peter pouted, pushing his bottom lip out helplessly.

Mr Stark took pity on him, it seemed, because his stony face relaxed. “I’ll see if I can find another pair, alright?”

That seemed… sufficient, so Peter nodded. He took the time to actually look at his surroundings for the first time since he woke up. Clean, white walls, a window giving him a glimpse of the slate-coloured sky, a chair on each side of his bed, one occupied by a certain genius billionaire, and one empty. The absence of a certain person jarred his thoughts.

“Where’s May?” he asked, a hint of panic lacing his tone.

“On her way,” Tony soothed. “Her course finished yesterday, so I called her to give her a heads-up of the whole situation. I was going to do it before, when everything was a little more…up in the air, but you pulled through, which meant you’d be able to whoop my ass if I interrupted her, so I refrained. The only problem is that I now have a small, furious woman on my case for not informing her that her nephew had been, and I quote, ‘turned into a human skewer in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere.’ I just can’t win.”

Peter laughed, but it turned into a yawn too forceful for him to stifle. Mr Stark, ever the detective, picked up on it without preamble. “You should get some rest, kid. May will probably be here by the time you wake up.”

“Wait, can we watch  _ Night at the Museum _ ?”   


“I don’t understand your obsession with that movie, kid.”   


“It’s a masterpiece. The quirky, old man villain squad led by Dick Van Dyke? Iconic. The representation - historical figures of colour played by actors of the same ethnicity? Respect. The relationship between Jedediah and Octavius? A work of art. As if that’s not enough, there’s a T-rex that plays fetch with its own rib bone. Made me want to become a palaeontologist for a really long time.”

“Are you telling me we could have lost one of the greatest minds in biochemistry and physics to the loonies that lick rocks?”

Peter blushed a little, but the teasing glint in his eye did not fade. “I think it’s technically a geologist that licks rocks, Mr Stark. If I were to be a palaeontologist, I’d lick  _ bone _ .”   


“Jesus Christ,” the man muttered, looking grieved. “Genius prodigy child, licking bone. It’s insanity.”   


“No, Mr Stark. It’s  _ science _ .”

“Whatever you say. Now,  _ sleep _ .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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